The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit the border of Iran and Iraq this weekend has taken the lives of 452, per CNN, and more than 7,000 people injured.
The details: Most of those killed were in Iran, although 7 are reported dead in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The center of the earthquake was outside Halabja, Iraq, per the AP, which is the same city where Saddam Hussein's regime killed about 5,000 people with a chemical weapons attack in 1988.
The FBI is looking into 60 transactions where a Kremlin-backed Russian bank sent a total of $380,000 to various embassies last year, Buzzfeed reports. A $30,000 wire transfer was sent to the U.S. embassy right before the U.S. election and included the memo: ""to finance election campaign of 2016."
Why it might matter: This could be more proof that Russia intentionally interfered with the U.S. election. It could also be that the money transfers were in connection to the polling stations opened at embassies for Russian voters living abroad since there was an election for the Duma — the lower Russian house of parliament — that year, Buzzfeed reports
A North Korean soldier successfully defected to South Korea Monday with a gunshot wound, per Reuters. He defected by leaving his guard post and heading towards the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the North and South, The Guardian reports.
Why it matters: This type of event can exacerbate current tension between the two nations. South Korea's military has upped its level of alertness following the event, but as of yet, there has been no official comment from North Korea.
"Deep Security Breach Cripples N.S.A.," says the stark headline atop today's N.Y. Times front page. "Mysterious Group Steals Powerful Hacking Weapons, Putting World in Danger ... A serial leak of the agency's cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide."
Why it matters: "[T]he flood of digital secrets ... is raising profound questions. Have hackers and leakers made secrecy obsolete? Has Russian intelligence simply outplayed the United States, penetrating the most closely guarded corners of its government?"
