Iranian "malicious cyber actors" emailed associates of President Biden's re-election campaign with information "taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump's" campaign over the summer, U.S. investigators said Wednesday.
The big picture: The incidents that occurred before Biden suspended his campaign mark "the latest example of Iran's multipronged approach" to "stoke discord and undermine confidence" in the U.S. electoral process, per a joint statement from the FBI, CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
IEDs created from pagers and walkie-talkies and reports of exploding solar-energy systems herald a possibly limitless front in future war, where everyday items can't be trusted.
Why it matters: Supply chain warfare is here to stay. And the targets are soft.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday told an audience of Hispanic leaders that it's possible to both secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Why it matters: Immigrant advocates hope Harris' newly-hawkish border policy, which they see as MAGA-leaning, is a temporary shift, Axios' Alex Thompson writes.
IEDs created from pagers and walkie-talkies and reports of exploding solar-energy systems herald a possibly limitless front in future war, where everyday items can't be trusted.
Why it matters: Supply chain warfare is here to stay. And the targets are soft.
Blowing up factories and raiding supply lines is nothing new. What's unprecedented here are the spy-thriller-style backdoors and execution.
Driving the news: Fresh footage is streaming out of the Middle East, providing a closer look at attacks attributed to Israel. Yesterday, one clip showed a device blowing up in a market, incapacitating a person and spooking passersby.
Disney and the Starlight Children's Foundation are honoring Hispanic Heritage Month by providing new Encanto-themed hospital gowns and pants to children's hospitals across the country.
The big picture: The non-profit that aids hospitalized children and their families tells Axios Latino that patients this month will receive special gowns featuring "Encanto" characters Mirabel, Antonio, and Isabela.
Israel on Wednesday blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon in a second wave of an intelligence operation that started on Tuesday with the explosions of pager devices, two sources with knowledge of the operation told Axios. More than a dozen people were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
The big picture: The second wave of clandestine attacks is another serious security breach in Hezbollah's ranks and increases pressure on the militant Lebanese group.
Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told Axios.
Why it matters: The attack took place as tensions rise between Israel and Hezbollah, which U.S. officials are highly concerned will devolve into all out war.
Nine people were killed, including a child, and 2,800 were wounded when pager devices belonging to Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on Tuesday, Lebanon's minister of health said on Tuesday.
Why it matters: The explosions took place amid growing escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in recent weeks, which U.S. officials are highly concerned will devolve into all out war.
Israel didn't inform the Biden administration in advance about its intelligence operation to explode thousands of Hezbollah members' pager devices, two U.S. officials told Axios.
Why it matters: The explosions killed at least nine people, including a child, and wounded 2,800 others, among them many members of Hezbollah and its military units.
1. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa says he is proposing a constitutional amendment to allow foreign military bases in the country.
Noboa's government has been aggressively fighting rising violence since he took office late last year.
The U.S. has assisted with some police and emergency equipment such as bulletproof vests and ambulances. It previously had a military base in the country but was booted in 2009.
2. The Cuban government this week began reducing the amount of bread it sells on the island, saying it ran short of wheat flour.
The latest is on top of years of food and medicine shortages that have forced many to leave Cuba.
The island has also been having more blackouts and outages and water supply problems this summer.
Floki playing a round of footvolley. Source: via Noticias Telemundo
Floki, a border collie, has been gaining fans on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro as part of amateur teams playing footvolley.
State of play: Combining elements of volleyball and soccer, footvolley, or futevôlei,is a popular beach sport in Brazil.
Floki, who's 3 years old, has become a master at keeping the ball in the air alongside teammate Gustavo Rodrigues, his human. They've have gained TikTok popularity.
Rodrigues said he didn't directly teach Floki how to play and instead noticed he could when he started bouncing balloons with his snout at a birthday party.
Latino Protestants are more politically diverse than conservative-leaning white evangelicals, according to a new report.
Why it matters: The growing number of Latino Protestants, who are predominantly evangelical, are making elections hard to predict as the latest data show they differ politically from white and Black Christians.
Chinese-manufactured cargo cranes are sounding alarm bells in D.C. about state-backed espionage and cyber threats.
Why it matters: Many China hawks now believe that Beijing holds the power to knock out most of the U.S.'s cargo cranes — potentially disrupting the global trade of consumer goods, military equipment and other resources.
The big picture: As Storm Boris moves through the region, it has brought several months' worth or more of rain to Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and other countries in just a matter of days.
At least 1,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced, by floods across Central and Western Africa. Parts of Nigeria, Mali, and Niger have been particularly hard hit by some of the heaviest rains in decades.
Threat level: The flooding, which has hit some of the driest places in the world, has displaced large groups of people and drowned many who could not escape swiftly-moving water in time.
Meta is banning RT and other Russian state media outlets due to "foreign interference activity" after the U.S. accused the organizations of advancing an election interference scheme.
Why it matters: The Justice Department (DOJ) alleged in an indictment earlier this month that employees of the Kremlin-backed outlet spent millions to direct an American company and several right-wing influencers to unwittingly publish Russian propaganda.
Microsoft is boosting its investment in AI for the Middle East and Africa, in conjunction with Abu Dhabi-based G42.
Why it matters: Microsoft wants its technology — and U.S. tech more broadly — to beat China in the battle to power the world's AI systems, especially in developing countries.
U.S. students have made up for some pandemic-era learning losses in math and reading — but the recovery has been slow and uneven, especially among students of color, per a new report.
Why it matters: The pandemic exposed deep racial and income inequalities in the nation's public school system, and the uneven recovery is showing few of those inequities have been addressed enough.
The big picture: The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee filed a letter of support in Chiles' appeal against the Court of Arbitration for Sport's (CAS) decision to revoke the medal in the women's gymnastics floor event and award it to Romanian gymnast Ana Bărbosu, per a statement from her attorneys.
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