Alisal Fire grows to become Southern California's first major wildfire of season


View of the Alisal Fire from the Reagan Ranch. 

Photo Courtesy of Los Padres National Forest

Oct. 13 (UPI) -- The Alisal Fire burning just outside of Santa Barbara grew to 14,500 acres as strong winds stoked the blaze into Southern California's first major wildfire of the season.

After starting Monday afternoon, the fire grew from strong northern winds that closed portions of Highway 101 and halted Amtrak service, officials said. The fire also triggered evacuations in Arroyo Hondo Canyon, Refugio Canyon and the area between El Capitan Beach State Park and West Camino Cielo.

The fire is just 5% contained as air tankers made drops to assist fire crews on Wednesday, the Los Padres National Forest said on Twitter.

The fire is now threatening the Rancho del Cielo, the 688-acre ranch known as the "Western White House," the former vacation home of President Ronald Reagan, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Flemming Bertelsen, the property's manager, told the paper that the ranch "dodged a bullet" after the fire had come within a quarter-mile.

"We were expecting to get slammed by the fire running up-canyon on us, but amazingly, this unusual north wind kept pushing it away from us," he said.

The region's unique sundowner winds, which blow strong gusts down the slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains toward the ocean, contributed to the fire's size.

The fire is burning an area that has not seen a wildfire since 1955, CBS Los Angeles reported. More than 1,400 personnel with the U.S. Forest Service as well as other agencies are working to contain the blaze. Between 100 and 200 structures are threatened.

VIDEO California fire grows to 13,400 acres (yahoo.com)

Statues from British garden identified as ancient Egyptian, sell for $265,510

Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A pair of statues from a British garden initially were believed to be 18th-century replicas of Egyptian artifacts, but fetched $265,510 at an auction after they were suspected to be thousands of years old.

Mander Auctioneers said a couple moving out of their Sudbury, England, home contacted the auction house to sell off items from the home they were vacating, and among them were a pair of sphinx statues that had spent 15 years in the couple's garden.

The couple said the statues were purchased from another auction for a few hundred dollars and were believed to be 18th century replicas of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Auctioneer James Mander said the auction house didn't question the couple's appraisal of the statues' origins and expected them to sell for $410 to $680, but the auction started to skyrocket when prospective buyers suggested the statues could be actual Egyptian items dating thousands of years.

Mander said the statues sold for a final price of $265,510 to an international art gallery. He said the gallery owners' examination of the statues determined they are indeed authentic Egyptian artifacts.

"As it turns out they're thousands of years old and genuine. So it's quite amazing really," Mander told CNN.

Work is now being done to try to determine exactly when the items date from.

"I wonder where they've been for the last 5,000 years. It's quite incredible, really," Mander said.

DESIGNER QUEEN GRAHAM
Lindsey Graham Warns 40,000 Brazilians Illegally Crossing Border, Heading for Connecticut ‘Wearing Designer Clothes and Gucci Bags’

GUCCI 2020

By Jackson Richman

Oct 13th, 2021, 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) claimed on Tuesday that there have been 40,000 Brazilians who’ve illegally crossed the border through the Yuma Sector in Arizona and headed to Connecticut “wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags.”

Graham made this unproven claim during an appearance on Hannity on Fox News.

“We’re a nation of laws, or we’re supposed to be, our laws are all predicated on that great document known as our Constitution. Joe Biden is not only not enforcing the law but he’s aiding and abetting lawbreaking by processing and not even requiring, they are requesting people show up, not requiring,” said host Sean Hannity, teeing up Graham. “So my question is does every other American get to pick and choose what laws they want to obey and not obey?”

“If you really were serious about people coming into the country, bringing Covid. You know, if you’re going to travel from Germany to the United States you have to be vaccinated and have a negative test,” said Graham. “You had 114,000 people come into the Yuma Sector alone since last October. Nobody’s being tested, nobody’s being vaccinated. They don’t have the capability to do that.”

Hannity rhetorically asked if illegal immigrants are getting “preferential treatment.” Graham concurred and added “it’s dangerous.”

ALESANDRO MICHELLE GUGGI HEAD DESIGNER

Graham went on to say:

What I saw that bothers me the most is another 9/11 in the making. There 80 countries they’ve picked people up from. Two terrorists from Yemen they caught just a couple weeks ago. How easy would it be for Al Qaeda or ISIS to leave out Afghanistan and come through the Southern Border to blend in … The border patrol is doing the best they can but they told me that the likelihood of a terrorist attack coming from our Southern Border grows by the day. And what you see in Texas is moving to Arizona. A 1300 percent increase in illegal crossings in the Yuma Sector in the last few months. Why? We changed the Remain in Mexico Policy.

The Remain in Mexico Policy, which was instituted under the Trump administration, required those trying to cross the Southern Border to seek asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico while awaiting their court date in the United States. The Biden administration tried to end the program in June, but the Supreme Court ordered in August for it to be reinstated. The administration has said it will again try to end the program.

Graham blamed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ memo on Tuesday to Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop workplace raids in seeking to catch undocumented immigrants. Graham said that this move “is going to be another incentive for people to come ‘cause the word is out, you come, you claim asylum, you never leave.”

“The policy choices of Biden are all over the world now,” said Graham. “We had 40,000 Brazilians come through the Yuma Sector alone, headed for Connecticut, wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags. This is not economic migration anymore. People see an open America, they’re taking advantage of us, and it won’t be long before a terrorist gets in this crowd.”

This Compass Call squadron is coming home after 20 years of hacking and jamming enemies in CENTCOM

By Rachel S. Cohen
Oct 11, 2021

Members of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing take part in the inactivation ceremony of the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, Sept. 28. The 41st EECS operated the EC-130H Compass Call aircraft, conducting electronic warfare for just under 20 years in U.S. Central Command before being officially inactivated. (Master Sgt. Wolfram Stumpf/Air Force)

After almost 20 years as a shadowy player in the War on Terror, the Air Force’s squadron of EC-130H electronic warfare planes is leaving its longtime home at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.

The 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron formally shut down Sept. 28, marking another milestone in the U.S. military’s withdrawal from war against the Taliban and other insurgent forces in Afghanistan. The unit reverts back to the 41st Electronic Combat Squadron when not deployed.

The squadron and its specialized “Compass Call” planes headed to U.S. Central Command from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. Since then, those EC-130H crews have flown about 14,750 sorties — more than 90,000 hours in the air.


'If you can't talk, you can't fight': Compass Call planes confuse ISIS
The Vietnam War-era airplane sitting on the flightline at the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing’s home base here may not look like much, but it is packed to the gills with electronics dedicated to sowing chaos in the ranks of the Islamic State terror group.
By Stephen Losey

Compass Call’s unique mission has made it one of the most in-demand airframes in CENTCOM over the past 20 years. It carries a slew of hardware and software that allow airmen to eavesdrop on nearby combatants, interfere with enemy transmissions across radios and combat vehicles alike, jam radars and, in recent years, send computer code to wireless devices — regardless of whether they are connected to the internet.

Those capabilities have come in handy from the start but continue to evolve as the globe grows increasingly dependent on assured connectivity and trustworthy information from those networks.

“At the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, dozens of Iraqi soldiers waited patiently near the al Faw Peninsula for instructions being transmitted from higher headquarters to blow up key oil fields there. The message never came. In its place … was static,” the Air Force said of EC-130H operations in 2004, about two years into Compass Call’s time there.

EC-130H crews include about a dozen airmen onboard: two pilots, a navigator, a flight engineer, a mission crew commander and supervisor, a maintenance technician, a signals analyst and multiple cryptologic language analysts.

RELATED

Some C-130H units to be replaced by cyber ops, helicopters
Congress needs to sign off on the Hercules retirements first.
By Rachel S. Cohen

Their tactics have changed alongside frequent upgrades from the secretive “Big Safari” program office. Compass Call has pivoted to jam the signals of booby-trapped enemy quadcopters that are used for surveillance and bombings, and cut off contact between members of groups like the Islamic State.

An EC-130H Compass Call takes off from an airfield at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia Jan. 18, 2017. The Compass Call was engaged in operations jamming Da’esh communications in order to confuse and disorient enemy fighters. (Capt. Casey Osborne/Air Force)

As the military scrambled to evacuate Afghan and American citizens, and to pull out its own troops from Afghanistan in August, EC-130Hs flew overhead to ensure U.S. troops had the open lines of communication they needed. While the 41st EECS will no longer maintain a permanent presence in the UAE, Compass Call can still deploy on hacking and jamming missions in CENTCOM as needed.

The Air Force is also bringing the 41st EECS home in the process of replacing the Compass Call fleet, which outfitted existing C-130 planes with electronic warfare equipment four decades ago.

Five of 14 EC-130Hs have retired so far, and only half the fleet will remain as of next fall. They’re making way for the EC-37B, a smaller, modern jet intended to be more cost-efficient, reliable and faster than the current platform.

L3Harris, in charge of integrating the new suite of EW systems onto the jet, and Gulfstream, whose G550 airframe will serve as the new Compass Call itself, plan to deliver the first planes to the Air Force in 2023.

RELATED

L3 gets Compass Call contract, names Gulfstream as airframe provider
Following an August decision by the Government Accountability Office to deny protests from Bombardier and Boeing, the Air Force awarded L3 Technologies the systems integrator contract for the program, which is now known as EC-X,
By Valerie Insinna

Looking ahead, squadron members are practicing for conflicts that will keep them on their toes. Instead of relying on the same brick-and-mortar installation as its home base overseas, as it has for decades, the 41st EECS recently tried its hand at a rapid evacuation and relocation drill for the first time.

It’s part of the Air Force’s push to make units more flexible in case their installation is targeted, or to quickly leapfrog through a region during back-to-back sorties.

Handling missions across multiple geographic regions requires a particularly close relationship between aircrews and maintainers on the ground to keep the aging planes aloft, the Air Force said.

“We tried to make it as realistic as possible while ensuring both the flight crews and maintenance crew members were briefed and ready,” C-130H pilot Capt. Brittany Monio said in a December 2020 release. “Planning flights in such a quick manner is a large deviation from normal, but our crews executed very safely and effectively.”

About Rachel S. Cohen
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.

Biden hit with backlash over removal of Pentagon’s top nuclear policy official
By Joe Gould

The Biden administration's Nuclear Posture Review is due in early 2022.

 (Senior Airman Abbigayle Williams/U.S. Air Force)

WASHINGTON ― Lawmakers on both sides of nuclear weapons issues want answers after the lead Pentagon official overseeing the Nuclear Posture Review was ousted after nine months on the job and her position eliminated.

The Pentagon is saying the departure of Leonor Tomero, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, was due to a reorganization. However, non-proliferation advocates are questioning whether it was because Tomero was an advocate for nuclear restraint, and worry it could bias the review away from President Joe Biden’s pursuit of arms control.

“Congress needs to understand whether ideology played any role in Ms. Tomero’s dismissal,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a proponent of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, wrote in a Sept. 24 letter to Biden that included nearly a dozen questions.

“I am also concerned that the sudden departure of a top appointee, charged with presenting you options on the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise, will result in a draft Nuclear Posture Review that reflects the Cold War era’s overreliance on nuclear weapons, rather than your lifetime of work championing policies that reduce nuclear weapons risks,” the senator added.

Politico broke the news last week that Tomero, who was leading reviews of nuclear weapons and missile defense policy, was leaving and that her responsibilities would be absorbed by the Pentagon’s new assistant secretary for space. Tomero’s former boss, Melissa Dalton, who is performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, will lead the Nuclear Posture Review in Tomero’s place, Politico reported.

The deputy assistant secretary of defense for countering weapons of mass destruction, Richard Johnson, will soon assume the duties of the nuclear deterrence portfolio, in addition to his current role, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Monday. Kirby praised Tomero and seemed to suggest that her work with the Biden administration was not over.

“We are confident she will continue to contribute to U.S. national security in the administration, and we remain grateful for her service,” Kirby said.

The Nuclear Posture Review, due in early 2022, is expected to chart a definitive course for Biden amid competing pressures.

While on the campaign trail, Biden expressed a desire to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy, and his website says their “sole purpose” is to deter and, if needed, retaliate against a nuclear attack. But there are heated divisions in Congress over the best response to Russian and Chinese nuclear behavior as well as the growing cost of the U.S. nuclear modernization program.


Leonor Tomero served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense. (U.S. Defense Department)

There are two camps within the Biden administration, according to a former defense official. One is focused on arms control, is skeptical of multibillion-dollar nuclear modernization plans and is mainly centered in the State Department. The other is focused on competition with Russia and China, and is deeply concerned that allies under America’s nuclear umbrella would feel abandoned if the country reduced its arsenal.

For more than a decade, Tomero was the House Armed Services Committee’s Democratic professional staff lead for nuclear deterrence, nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, military space and missile defense. There, she worked for now-Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., who’s voiced skepticism about the cost of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and modernizing them ― and called for the U.S. to adopt a “no-first-use” nuclear weapons policy.

Both sides of the argument have been jockeying amid some apparent contradictions from the Biden administration. While Biden’s first Interim National Security Strategic Guidance stated that “we will endeavor to head off costly arms races and re-establish our credibility as a leader in arms control,” his budget request upset nonproliferation advocates by continuing expansive nuclear weapons sustainment and modernization efforts inherited from the Trump administration.

Tom Collina of the Ploughshares Fund, which advocates for the elimination of nuclear weapons, said removing Tomero — and thus excluding her views that challenged the status quo on nuclear arms — is a disservice to Biden and his pursuit of options for nuclear restraint.

“The reality now is that the person who is going to be drafting the NPR is much more conservative than the person who was going to be doing it,” Collina said. “And what that means is the NPR will not be considering the kind of options President Biden would want to see but that would be threatening to old ways of thinking at the Pentagon.”

PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY
Pentagon’s arms sales chief resigns as Biden administration faces decisions on transfer policy

By Joe Gould
Oct 13, 10:27 AM

Defense Security Cooperation Agency Director Heidi Grant is stepping down after 15 months in the role. 

(Staff Sgt. Victoria H. Taylor/U.S. Air Force)

WASHINGTON ― The director of the Pentagon agency in charge of foreign military sales is stepping down after 15 months in the role.

Defense Security Cooperation Agency Director Heidi Grant will be succeeded Nov. 7 by Deputy Director Jed Royal on an acting basis, the agency announced Wednesday. Grant, a longtime Air Force official, served in government for 32 years and was the first civilian to run DSCA since it was created in 1998.

DSCA’s announcement came a day after Grant said America’s strategic competition with Russia and China should weigh on U.S. decisions to sell arms to foreign partners, though she didn’t mention the two countries by name. She called strategic competition “a new lens for us.”

Speaking on a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting, Grant voiced frustration with a U.S. decision not to sell drones to the United Arab Emirates and other Mideast allies, which allowed China to sell them intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones instead.

“That’s why a strategic competitor transferred that technology [and] has a significant footprint of training bases for unmanned ISR,” Grant said. “It could have been us, we could be there, we could be training, advising and have that access.”

Proponents of foreign military sales see them as a means to cement U.S. interoperability and long-term relationships with partners, as those countries then rely on the U.S. for training and maintenance. Though officials balance policy and protecting sensitive technologies, Grant said strategic competition has altered that balance ― but noted her view is not necessarily the primary view.

“We have to look at this and say, if we’re not there, our strategic competition is going to fill the void. Is that riskier than transferring high end technologies,” she said.

“I’m not going to get into that, because there’s a lot of great policy people way above me that are making those calls,” she said. “You sometimes question, why is the U.S. going to transfer technology? Well, the other choice is do you want your strategic competitor in there?”

DSCA’s announcement said “Grant had been considering this transition for some time,” noting her move coincides with the implementation of a new organizational model for DSCA.

The turnover comes as the Biden administration is navigating cross-currents on arms sale policy, after former President Donald Trump prioritized economic benefits to U.S. defense contractors. Reuters reported the administration briefed Congress on its overhaul of its Conventional Arms Transfer policy to emphasize human rights, but nothing’s been unveiled since.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration was reportedly weighing whether to keep in place a Trump administration decision to loosen decades-old restrictions and no longer observe the international Missile Technology Control Regime’s “strong presumption of denial” standard for exports of the most sophisticated drones. There’s been no official word since.

The Biden administration for several months paused a $23 billon sale of the F-35 joint strike fighter to the UAE. It also paused indefinitely two precision guided munition sales to Saudi Arabia, worth as much as $760 million, as part of a new policy aimed at curtailing violence in Yemen.

HERE WE GO AGAIN, 3RD TIME LUCKY
WHO launches a new group to study the origins of the coronavirus

October 13, 2021


Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks during a news conference on the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Geneva, in March 2020.Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The World Health Organization has announced the establishment of a scientific advisory group aimed at identifying the origin of COVID-19 and to better prepare for future outbreaks of other deadly pathogens.

The WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, will include scientists from the U.S., China and about two dozen other countries. It will be charged with answering the question of how the novel coronavirus first infected humans — a mystery that continues to elude experts more than 18 months into the crisis. The group will also be responsible for establishing a framework to combat future pandemics

Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of WHO's emerging disease unit, called the establishment of the new group "a real opportunity right now to get rid of all the noise, all the politics surrounding this and focus on what we know, what we don't know."


THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
The WHO's Chief Says It Was Premature To Rule Out A Lab Leak As The Pandemic's Origin

The team will be selected from more than 700 applications from experts in fields including epidemiology, animal health, ecology, clinical medicine, virology, genomics, molecular epidemiology, molecular biology, biology, food safety, biosafety, biosecurity and public health, the WHO said in a statement.

"The emergence of new viruses with the potential to spark epidemics and pandemics is a fact of nature, and while SARS-CoV-2 is the latest such virus, it will not be the last," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "Understanding where new pathogens come from is essential for preventing future outbreaks with epidemic and pandemic potential, and requires a broad range of expertise."

Beijing continues to resist investigations in China

The establishment of the group comes as China has continued to resist efforts to study the possible origin of the virus there. After an initial investigation by the WHO, Beijing rejected a plan for a second phase of the probe in July that might delve into various hypotheses about the origin of the virus, including that it escaped from a Chinese government lab in the city of Wuhan.

The so-called "lab-leak theory" was initially dismissed by WHO, but has nonetheless gained traction in recent months, fueled in part by Beijing's secrecy. Many scientists contend that a lab leak is much less likely than the alternative — that the novel coronavirus has a natural origin.

Beijing did not immediately react to the announcement of the new task force.
The WHO director still wants to look at labs in Wuhan

Despite the WHO's initial findings, Tedros has called for audits of Wuhan laboratories, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some scientists believe may be the source of the virus that caused the first infections in China.

Some of the proposed SAGO members were on the original 10-person WHO team that studied possible origins in China, including Chinese scientist Yungui Yang of the Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

GOATS AND SODA
Unproven Lab Leak Theory Brings Pressure On China To Share Info. But It May Backfire

An editorial co-authored by Tedros that was published in Science on Wednesday said SAGO would "quickly assess the status of SARS-CoV-2 origin studies and advise WHO on what is known, the outstanding gaps, and next steps."

It said that "[all] hypotheses must continue to be examined," including the "studies of wildlife sold in markets in and around Wuhan, China (where cases of COVID-19 were first reported in December 2019); studies of SARS-like coronaviruses circulating in bats in China and Southeast Asia; studies on prepandemic biological sampling around the world; and other animal susceptibility studies."

"As well, laboratory hypotheses must be examined carefully, with a focus on labs in the location where the first reports of human infections emerged in Wuhan," it said, adding, "A lab accident cannot be ruled out until there is sufficient evidence to do so and those results are openly shared."

U.S. home heating bills expected to surge this winter, EIA says

By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) -U.S. consumers will spend more to heat their homes this winter than last year due to surging energy prices, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected in its winter fuels outlook on Wednesday.

Energy prices have risen sharply worldwide, causing power crunches in large economies like China and India.

The United States has so far not seen the same effect, even though prices of fuels from natural gas to heating oil have risen to multiyear highs and will hit household finances as the weather turns colder.

“As we have moved beyond what we expect to be the deepest part of the pandemic-related economic downturn, growth in energy demand has generally outpaced growth in supply,” EIA Acting Administrator Steve Nalley said in the release.

“These dynamics are raising energy prices around the world.”

Nearly half of U.S. households rely on natural gas for heat, with the average cost for those homes expected to rise by 30% to $746 for the October-to-March period from the same time a year earlier, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy said.

The average cost for a home with natural gas last winter was $573, far cheaper than other major sources of heat. Natural gas prices have risen sharply in recent months due to shortages in places like China and Europe, where demand has rebounded from the pandemic. The United States can only export a small portion of its natural gas supply due to limited terminal space for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export.

Electricity is the primary heating source for about 40% of homes. It is more expensive than natural gas at an estimated $1,268 per household this coming winter - but that represents a more modest 6% increase from last winter.

Less than 12 million American households rely on heating oil or propane - about 9% of the roughly 129 million U.S. households - but they will see the biggest hit. Those costs are expected to rise by 54% and 43% respectively, the EIA said, from last winter.

Changes in prices of heating oil and propane pass through much more quickly to consumers. Homes that rely on heating oil are concentrated in the U.S. Northeast, and the biggest users of propane are in the upper Midwest and northern Plains states.

Last year energy prices plunged to multi-year lows due to coronavirus demand destruction, particularly natural gas, the most popular U.S. heating fuel, which hit a 25-year-low.

Depending where people live, the EIA said residential costs will rise to about $11-$14 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) for natural gas, about $2.50-$3.50 per gallon for propane, and $3.39 per gallon for heating oil.

That compares with last winter’s residential costs of around $8-$12 per mcf for natural gas, $1.50-$2.50 per gallon for propane, and $2.55 per gallon for heating oil.


Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Jonathan Oatis, Marguerita Choy, Aurora Ellis and Jan Harvey


Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

FU ABBOTT

American, Southwest among Texas companies that will defy Abbott and keep vaccine mandates in place



Photo by: AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

By: Alex Hider
Posted  Oct 13, 2021

Several large companies based in Texas — including two of America's largest airliners — have said they plan to keep COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees in place, siding with federal authorities in a showdown between the White House and the governor of Texas.

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and IBM all said Tuesday that they would continue to require their workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, even though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an order on Monday banning private businesses from enforcing such mandates.


In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth-based American Airlines said that "we believe the federal vaccine mandate supersedes any conflicting state laws, and this does not change anything for American."

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines issued a similar statement to The Austin-American Statesman.

The company said they were choosing to comply with an order by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration — which will require businesses with over 100 employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated — because the White House order "supersedes any state mandate or law."

On Tuesday, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly told CNBC that he is opposed to vaccine mandates but that his company will still require the shots because he is required to by federal law.

"I've never been in favor of corporations imposing that kind of a mandate," Kelly said. "But the executive order from President Biden mandates that all federal employees and then all federal contractors, which covers all the major airlines, have to have a (vaccine) mandate (by Dec. 8)."

IBM told Bloomberg that it would keep in place a vaccine mandate for workers at its Texas office because the company has contracts with the federal government, meaning under Biden administration rules, it must require its employees to be vaccinated.

"IBM is a federal contractor and must comply with federal requirements, which direct employees of federal contractors to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by December 8th or obtain a medical or religious accommodation," a spokesperson for the company said. "We will continue to protect the health and safety of IBM employees and clients, and we will continue to follow federal requirements."

The resistance from high-profile employers could set up a legal battle, should the state of Texas choose to file a lawsuit.

According to The Associated Press, new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations linked to the virus have fallen in recent weeks. However, the state has seen more than 67,000 total coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Nations reveal ransomware pain at US-led summit

By AFP
Published October 13, 2021

A digital “disaster” in Germany, growing attacks in the United Arab Emirates and even Israel announcing a blitz underway: nations disclosed their struggle Wednesday against cyber-extortionists at a Washington-led anti-ransomware summit.

The United States has convened some 30 countries — with the notable exception of Russia — to boost cooperation in fighting the costly and disruptive attacks that have boomed around the world.

As if on cue, Yigal Unna, director of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, broke news of the latest incident.

“I can disclose now that Israel is experiencing, as we speak, a major ransomware attack against one of its big hospitals,” Unna said.

If the experiences recounted are any indication, the threat is painful, widespread, and growing.

Germany recalled that this summer, for the first time, a local government in the eastern district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld declared a state of “cyber disaster” after being crippled by a ransomware attack.

The United States has also been hit, especially in the first half of 2021, by numerous ransomware attacks against businesses.

These attacks involve breaking into an entity’s networks to encrypt its data, then demanding a ransom, typically paid in cryptocurrency in exchange for the key to unlock it.

“We talked about… a 70 percent increase year over year in South Korea, 200 percent in the UAE,” said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber.

Hospitals targeted in Ireland and the Czech Republic as well as severe disruptions to maritime infrastructure in South Africa were among the experiences recounted.

The United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, the European Union, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, and others joined in the virtual gathering that opened Wednesday and is set to continue Thursday.

– Russia not invited –

“No one country, no one group can solve this problem,” stressed White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

“Our governments may have different approaches with respect to the tools… to counter ransomware” he said, but “we recognize the urgency of the ransomware threat.”

In particular, he praised the active participation of Australia, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom in the preparations for the meeting.

These countries have organized workshops, which will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, around four themes: building resilience to the extortion attempts, the role of cryptocurrency in laundering ransoms, law enforcement and judicial action as well as diplomacy.

Asked about Russia’s absence, a senior White House official said in a briefing Tuesday, “in this first round of discussions we did not invite the Russians to participate.”

The source said Washington and Moscow had already established a “separate channel” of communication on the subject.

Although Moscow denies any responsibility, most recent ransomware attacks against the United States have been blamed on Russian-speaking hacker groups or those operating from Russian territory.

US President Joe Biden spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in July, telling him to “take action” against ransomware groups operating in Russia.

“We’ve seen some steps by the Russian government and are looking to see follow-up actions,” the White House official said Tuesday.

Russia excluded from 30-country meeting to fight ransomware and cyber crime

Nandita Bose
Reuters Staff
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 

(Soumil Kumar / Pexels.com)

WASHINGTON -- Russia was not invited to attend a 30-country virtual meeting led by the United States that is aimed at combating the growing threat of ransomware and other cyber crime, a senior administration official said.

Many ransomware gangs operate from Ukraine and Russia, private sector cybersecurity experts say.

Some U.S. officials and analysts have said Russian ransomware gangs operate with the Kremlin's tacit approval, but are not directly controlled by the government.

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The meeting will be held over two days, involve six sessions and include topics such as addressing the misuse of virtual currency to launder ransom payments, prosecuting ransomware criminals, using diplomacy to counter ransomware, and helping nations become more resilient to such attacks, the administration official said.

Along with the United States, India, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom will lead discussions on topics such as disruption, virtual currency and diplomacy.

Others joining the meeting include Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Ukraine, Ireland, Israel, South Africa, the European Union.

"We are having active discussions with the Russians, but in this particular forum they were not invited to participate," the senior administration official said, adding this does not preclude Russia from participating in future events.

The official said the United States engages directly with Russia on the issue of ransomware under the U.S.-Kremlin Experts Group, which is led by the White House and has been established by President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The official said discussions with Russia are ongoing, the U.S. has shared information on specific criminal actors within Russia and that the country has taken initial steps to address the issues being raised.

Addressing the opening session of the meeting on Wednesday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the meeting shows governments of participating countries recognize the urgency of the threat of ransomware.

"We view international cooperation as foundational to our collective ability to deal with the ransomware ecosystem, to hold criminals and the states that harbor them accountable, and to reduce the threat to our citizens in each of our countries," he said.

President Joe Biden has elevated the response to cybersercurity to the most senior levels of the administration following a set of attacks this year that threatened to destabilize U.S. energy and food supplies.

Hackers caused fuel disruptions in the eastern United States in May when they targeted a pipeline run by Colonial Pipeline. Sullivan said the U.S. Department of Justice recovered more than US$2 million of ransom paid to criminal actors who attacked the pipeline company.

The Biden administration hopes that their new informal group, which they are calling the Counter-Ransomware Initiative, will bolster their diplomatic push that has included direct talks with Russia as well as the NATO alliance and Group of Seven wealthy nations.

Russia responsible for most devastating ransomware attacks - UK cyber chief

by Vilius Petkauskas

12 October 2021

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Ransomware attacks pose the most immediate danger to UK businesses, the head of countries' National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Lindy Cameron, has warned.

Cybercriminals from Russia and its neighbors are behind the largest extortion attacks aimed at UK businesses, Cameron said. According to NCSC's chief, the assessment comes from NCSC and the National Crime Agency (NCA).

"We – along with the NCA – assess that cybercriminals based in Russia and neighboring countries are responsible for most of the devastating ransomware attacks against UK targets," Cameron said during a speech to the Chatham House think tank.

The Head of NCSC added that cybercriminals are increasingly successful and pose a global challenge for nations in ensuring that no place becomes a safe haven.

"We – along with the NCA – assess that cybercriminals based in Russia and neighboring countries are responsible for most of the devastating ransomware attacks against UK targets."

-Lindy Cameron

"Ransomware presents the most immediate danger to UK businesses and most other organizations, from FTSE 100 companies to schools; from critical national infrastructure to local councils," Cameron said.

Last week, Ukrainian police announced they had arrested a 25-year-old man who hacked more than 100 foreign companies and caused damage worth more than $150 million. According to the authorities, the victims included world-famous energy and tourism companies.

Even though it is not the first time Russia has been mentioned among the top culprits behind the cybercrime epidemic plaguing the world, it is one of the first times the UK explicitly named Russia responsible for successful ransomware attacks.

It's hardly a secret that many prominent cyber cartels often operate from Russian territory. On May 7, the Colonial Pipeline facility in Pelham, Alabama. Its operators were forced to shut down their systems, causing fuel shortages in the American Southeast.

The culprit behind the attack was the Darkside ransomware cartel, known to operate in Russia. Darkside cartel was also behind a recent attack against a US farm service provider New Cooperative Inc. A meat supplier JBS was REvil, the same month.

Last December, against SolarWinds was discovered, with the Russia-linked APT29 cyber espionage group (aka Cozy Bear) named as the perpetrator.

Image by NCSC.

Year in turmoil

Cyberattacks are increasing in scale, sophistication, and scope. In 2020, ransomware payments reached over $400 million, more than four times the level of 2019. This year will likely set another record benchmark for ransomware cartels globally.

Pundits talk of a ransomware gold rush, with the number of attacks increasing over 90% in the first half of 2021 alone.

A recent IBM report shows that an average data breach costs victims $4.24 million per incident, the highest in the 17 years. For example, the average cost stood at $3.86 million per incident last year, putting recent results at a 10% increase.

Some ransomware groups went dark for a while, after carrying out major attacks. A cool-off period is likely meant to regroup, and recent developments show that cybercrime cartels are waking up and will likely be on the prowl for the next major extortion scheme.