SYDNEY: Australian police said Tuesday they have charged 14 members of an organized crime ring accused of menacing the country with attacks dressed up as religiously motivated hate crimes.
Jewish neighborhoods in Sydney city have in recent months seen synagogues daubed in anti-Semitic graffiti, buildings firebombed in the dead of night and cars torched by vandals.
Although the crime wave stoked fears about rising anti-Semitism in Australia, police said they no longer believed many of these incidents were driven by “ideology.”
Instead, police said it appeared to be an attempt by organized criminals to gain favor by carrying out high-profile attacks — and then tipping off authorities later.
New South Wales Police said Tuesday that 14 people had been arrested and charged with 65 offenses, including taking part in a “criminal group,” arson and destroying property.
“None of the individuals we have arrested... have displayed any form of anti-Semitic ideology,” NSW Police deputy commissioner David Hudson said Monday evening after a series of raids.
“I think these organized crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community,” he added.
The most alarming incident was the discovery of explosives in an abandoned caravan alongside a purported list of Jewish targets.
At the time, NSW Premier Chris Minns said the caravan appeared to be part of a foiled “mass casualty” terror plot.
Police now believe it was nothing more than a carefully constructed “criminal con job.”
“I can reveal that the caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event, but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” senior officer Krissy Barrett said on Monday evening.
Police said they suspected the same “individual or individuals” were behind both the anti-Semitic attacks and the caravan hoax.
“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to, engage in other criminal activity,” said deputy commissioner Hudson.
“There are a variety of reasons why individuals do this.”
Australian police say crime ring preyed on Jewish ‘vulnerability’
https://arab.news/jbc2a
Australian police say crime ring preyed on Jewish ‘vulnerability’
- New South Wales Police said Tuesday that 14 people had been arrested and charged with 65 offenses, including taking part in a “criminal group,” arson and destroying property
US investigating ‘threat’ to Trump by ex-FBI chief Comey
WASHINGTON: US law enforcement agencies are investigating an alleged assassination threat against President Donald Trump by former FBI director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday.
The announcement by Noem came after Comey made a now-deleted post on Instagram that showed an image of “86 47” spelled out in sea shells, with “86” being slang for kill and Trump the 47th president.
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Noem posted on X.
“DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” she said.
Comey later said on Instagram that he posted “a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message.”
“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he said.
Trump was wounded in the ear during an assassination attempt that took place while he was holding a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, and has faced other threats.
Putin ‘must pay the price for avoiding peace’ in Ukraine: Britain’s Starmer
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Russian President Vladimir Putin “must pay the price for avoiding peace” ahead of a European Political Community meeting in Albania on Friday.
“Putin’s tactics to dither and delay, while continuing to kill and cause bloodshed across Ukraine, intolerable,” Starmer said in a statement ahead of the summit, taking place the same day talks are expected between Ukraine and Russia in Turkiye.
Nose cone glitch wipes Australian rocket launch
- The mishap happened before fueling of the vehicle at the company’s spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen
SYDNEY: An Australian aerospace firm said Friday it has scrubbed a historic attempt to send a locally developed rocket into orbit, citing a glitch in the nose cone protecting its payload — a jar of Vegemite.
An electrical fault erroneously deployed the opening mechanism of the carbon-fiber nose cone during pre-flight testing, Gilmour Space Technologies said.
The nose cone is designed to shield the payload during the rocket’s ascent through the Earth’s atmosphere before reaching space.
The mishap happened before fueling of the vehicle at the company’s spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen, about 1,000 kilometers up from the Queensland capital Brisbane.
“The good news is the rocket and the team are both fine. While we’re disappointed by the delay, we’re already working through a resolution and expect to be back on the pad soon,” said chief executive Adam Gilmour.
“As always, safety is our highest priority.”
Gilmour said the team would now work to identify the problem on its 23-meter, three-stage Eris rocket, which is designed to send satellites into low-Earth orbit.
A replacement nose cone would be transported to the launch site in the coming days, he said.
Weighing 30 tons fully fueled, the rocket has a hybrid propulsion system, using a solid inert fuel and a liquid oxidiser, which provides the oxygen for it to burn.
If successful, it would be the first Australian-made rocket to be sent into orbit from Australian soil.
“We have all worked really hard so, yes, the team is disappointed. But on the other hand, we do rockets — they are used to setbacks,” said communications chief Michelle Gilmour.
“We are talking about at least a few weeks, so it is not going to happen now,” she told AFP.
The payload for the initial test — a jar of Vegemite — remained intact.
“It’s hardy, resilient, like Aussies,” she said.
Gilmour Space Technologies had to delay a launch attempt the previous day, too, because of a bug in the external power system it relies on for system checks.
The company, which has 230 employees, hopes to start commercial launches in late 2026 or early 2027.
It has worked on rocket development for a decade, and is backed by investors including venture capital group Blackbird and pension fund HESTA.
Coinbase warns of up to $400 million hit from cyberattack
- Hackers bribed staff overseas
- Company rejected $20 million ransom demand
Coinbase forecast a hit of $180 million to $400 million from a cyberattack that breached account data of a “small subset” of its customers, the crypto exchange said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
The company received an email from an unknown threat actor on May 11, claiming to have information about certain customer accounts as well as internal documents.
While some data — including names, addresses and emails — was stolen, the hackers did not get access to login credentials or passwords, Coinbase said. It would, however, reimburse customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attackers.
Hackers had paid multiple contractors and employees working in support roles outside the US to collect information. The company had fired those involved, it said.
Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had begun scrutinizing whether Coinbase had misstated its user figures, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The agency had also been interested in whether any inaccurate user data could indicate the company had inadequate know-your-customer compliance that is required of firms registered with the SEC, the sources said.
A Coinbase spokesperson denied the SEC was probing the company’s compliance with know-your-customer and Bank Secrecy Act rules.
Another source familiar with the matter said that the SEC did not directly ask questions about such compliance and that it would not be a relevant topic since the SEC
dropped a separate case
against Coinbase alleging the firm failed to register with the SEC.
The inquiry into Coinbase’s “verified user” metric had continued even after the SEC abandoned its other lawsuit, the source said. The New York Times first reported the investigation into user data from past disclosures.
Coinbase shares extended losses after the report and were last down 6.5 percent.
“This is a hold-over investigation from the prior administration about a metric we stopped reporting two and a half years ago, which was fully disclosed to the public,” Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said.
“While we strongly believe this investigation should not continue, we remain committed to working with the SEC to bring this matter to a close.”
The SEC declined to comment.
Cracks in crypto
The latest developments come days before the company is set to join the benchmark S&P 500 index, casting a shadow over what was expected to be a landmark moment for the crypto industry.
Security remains a challenge for the crypto industry despite its growing mainstream acceptance. In February, Bybit disclosed a hack in which around $1.5 billion of digital tokens were stolen — widely dubbed the biggest crypto heist of all time.
“The cyberattack may push the industry to adopt stricter employee vetting and introduce some reputational risks,” said Bo Pei, analyst at US Tiger Securities.
Funds stolen by hacking crypto platforms totaled $2.2 billion in 2024, according to a report from Chainalysis.
“As our nascent industry grows rapidly, it draws the eye of bad actors, who are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the scope of their attacks,” said Nick Jones, founder of crypto firm Zumo.
The firm now also faces a lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleging the world’s largest crypto exchange failed to secure and safeguard personally identifiable information of millions of former and current customers, the filing showed.
Coinbase has refused to pay a ransom demand of $20 million from the attackers and is working with law enforcement agencies. It has instead established a $20 million reward for information on the hackers.
The company is also opening a new support hub in the US and taking other measures to prevent such cyberattacks, it said.
Republican House bill would jack up cost of US solar home systems, PV panel makers warn
- Proposed measure would scrap 30 percent tax credit for homeowners with solar panels
- Bill aligned with Trump move to undo Biden-era clean energy program
Companies that put solar panels on US homes say a Republican budget bill advanced in Congress this week would deal a massive blow to the industry by eliminating a generous subsidy for homeowners that had buttressed the industry’s growth.
The bill would scrap a 30 percent federal credit for taxpayers who put up rooftop systems, stifling an industry that has grown ten-fold over the last decade and which now employs more than 100,000 workers, industry players said.
“It certainly is a giant setback,” said Charlie Hadlow, president of EnergySage, an online solar marketplace. “I have solar installers in our large network passing around the contact information for bankruptcy attorneys. That’s not alarmist, that’s happening.”
Many of the biggest residential solar markets are in states that voted for President Donald Trump, including Texas, Florida and Arizona, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group.
The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted this week to allow the 25D tax credit to expire at the end of this year, nine years earlier than planned, as part of a Republican effort to roll back subsidies from former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
A spokesperson for Republicans on the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bill still has several hurdles to clear before getting a broad package of tax cuts, spending hikes and safety-net reductions through Congress.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump wants to undo federal regulations and programs introduced by Biden that are aimed at expanding clean energy and combating climate change.
More than half of residential installations qualify for the 25D tax credit, according to EnergySage, which estimates that rooftop systems will be about $8,000 or $9,000 more expensive without it.
The subsidy has been critical for small installers whose customers pay cash or take out loans and then claim the credit on their tax returns.
For panels that are owned by a third party, such as a bank, and leased to homeowners, system owners are able to claim a separate tax credit that the House bill would leave in place until 2032 but start to phase out in 2029.
That market is dominated by large players like Sunrun.
“You want to just place a larger burden on the regular Joe who pays taxes? It doesn’t seem fair,” said Jack Ramsey, CEO of Altsys Solar in Tulare, California.
Ramsey anticipates cutting his nine-person staff to four or five people if the credit is eliminated.
At the end of 2024, the US boasted 36 gigawatts of residential solar capacity, up from 3 GW in 2014 and a level equivalent to a third of the nation’s nuclear power capacity.
Rooftop solar accounts for more than a third of solar industry jobs, according to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
Rob Kaercher, CEO of Absolute Solar in Lansing, Michigan, has 24 employees and wants to hire more, but will not if the credit goes away.
“I strongly urge the credits to be maintained, because it would do a tremendous amount for local businesses just like ours to be able to continue to hire and grow,” Kaercher told reporters.
The move to eliminate the credit caught many in the industry off guard.
Thomas Clark, the director of marketing and communications of Northstone Solar in Whitefish, Montana, met with staff from his state’s Congressional delegation in Washington earlier this year and came away from the meeting feeling the credit was safe.
“Obviously this happening so quickly after those meetings really hurts as a constituent,” Clark said.
