The U.S. government believes hackers from Russia or elsewhere may try to undermine next week’s presidential election and is mounting an unprecedented effort to counter their cyber meddling, American officials told NBC News.
The effort is being coordinated by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, but reaches across the government to include the CIA, the National Security Agency and other elements of the Defense Department, current and former officials say.
Russia has been warned that any effort to manipulate the actual voting or vote counting would be viewed as a serious breach, intelligence officials say.
“The Russians are in an offensive mode and [the U.S. is] working on strategies to respond to that, and at the highest levels,” said Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.
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Exclusive: U.S. Intel Prepare for Possible Election Day Cyber Attacks
A jury has found two of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s former allies guilty on all counts for their roles in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, capping a case that roiled state politics and captured national attention.
Christie’s ex-deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and his former top Port Authority official, Bill Baroni, had faced nine counts of conspiracy and fraud stemming from the scheme to block access to the George Washington Bridge as a means to punish Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie’s re-election bid.
The verdict comes after seven weeks of dramatic testimony in which prosecutors argued the two spearheaded the plan in September 2013. Although Christie has maintained he had no knowledge or involvement in the lane closures, the so-called “Bridgegate” scandal has dogged the Republican for three years and undercut his failed presidential bid before it even began. Christie is a top Donald Trump surrogate and is currently planning the Republican nominee’s transition team if he wins the presidency.
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly, center, and her attorney Michael Critchley, second from left, leave Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse after a hearing on Sept. 26 in Newark. Mel Evans / AP
A somber mood fell upon the hundreds who gathered here Thursday on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Stout to pay their last respects to a friend they lost too soon.
A Saudi flag stood side by side with a U.S flag as more than 20 of Hussain Saeed Alnahdi’s closest friends shared their fondest memories of their “brother” while holding single white candles — honoring a man who “bridged a gap between the Saudi and local community,” in the words of Tommy Hutson, a friend.
There are still many unanswered questions in the violent beating of Alnahdi, 24, a Saudi student at the university who died Monday after he was assaulted and left bloodied near Toppers Pizza on a relatively crowded street early Sunday morning.
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A vigil is held for Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, the Saudi student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout who was attacked and killed early Sunday in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Safia Samee Ali / NBC News
Two U.S. service members were killed during a fierce battle with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan early Thursday — which local officials said resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians.
The Americans were on a “train, advise and assist” mission led by Afghan forces when they came under heavy fire miles north of the restive city of Kunduz, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.
Said Mahmood Danish, spokesman for Kunduz Governor Asadullah Omarkhel, told NBC News that Afghan special forces called in airstrikes to try to beat back the militants, and that 30 civilians were killed in the fighting, many of them children.
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A map showing the Afghan city of Kunduz. Google Maps
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy early Sunday, rattling Rome less than a week after temblors rattled a country still recovering from August’s quake that left almost 300 dead.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but residents rushed into piazzas and streets after being roused from bed at 7:40 a.m. local time (2:40 a.m. ET).
Nuns rushed out of their church in the central town of Norcia as the clock tower appeared about to crumble In Rieti, hospital patients fled into the street and and huddled outside under blankets.
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A collapsed building in Norcia pictured on Italian television channel Sky Tg24. HO / AFP – Getty Images
A constellation of warring factions have seemingly set aside deadly disputes to take part in one of Iraq’s toughest challenges yet — clearing ISIS out of its last major stronghold in the country.
A successful offensive to recapture Mosul could boost desperately needed national unity, restore the pride of an army that was humiliated when it fled ISIS in 2014 and rip the heart out of the group’s self-declared caliphate.
But the tinderbox coalition of anti-ISIS fighters that began its march on Iraq’s second-largest city earlier this month, as well as the combustible mix of the city’s ethnic and sectarian groups, risks triggering yet more bloodshed even after the jihadists have gone.
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Iraqi forces targeting ISIS militants south of Mosul on Wednesday. STRINGER / Reuters
Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the Pentagon on Wednesday to stop clawing-back the bonuses that thousands of soldiers got for reenlisting to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There is no more important responsibility for the Department of Defense than keeping faith with our people,” Carter said in a statement. “That means treating them fairly and equitably, honoring their service and sacrifice, and keeping our word. Today, in keeping with that obligation, I am ordering a series of steps to ensure fair treatment for thousands of California National Guard soldiers who may have received incentive bonuses and tuition assistance improperly as a result of errors and in some cases criminal behavior by members of the California National Guard.”
Carter’s announcement was greeted with cheers in Kempner, Texas where Don and Susan Haley — both Iraq War veterans — had been struggling to pay back the bonuses they got when they reenlisted a decade ago in the California National Guard.
The top United Nations human rights official said Friday that the siege and bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo constituted “crimes of historic proportions.”
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince and the current U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, referred to Aleppo as “a slaughterhouse.”
He added that the siege and bombardment of the city had caused heavy civilian casualties amounting to war crimes.
Zeid asked the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to set aside “political disagreements” and to refer the situation to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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A Syrian boy receives oxygen as he is pulled from the rubble of a building following Russian airstrikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo on Oct. 11. THAER MOHAMMED / AFP – Getty Images
For most people, learning they have a 90 percent chance of developing cancer would be devastating. But for 17-year-old Casey Longstreet, it was a call to action.
“I’m not living in fear. I don’t want to live my life in fear. I want to go out and make a difference in this world,” Casey said.
Casey has a rare mutation of the TP53 gene — a gene that provides the body with instructions for suppressing tumors. Having this mutation gives her a chance of more than a 90 percent of developing cancer.
Her little brother, Tanner Longstreet, had the mutated gene, too. Tanner died from a glioblastoma brain tumor when he was 11.
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The Longstreet family (clockwise from top left): Greg, Marlo, Tanner and Casey. Photo courtesy of Marlo Longstreet
North Korea has warned that it may carry out further nuclear tests and says it is prepared to launch a preemptive strike on the United States if U.S. nuclear forces mobilize against it.
“The U.S. has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Un,” a top North Korean official, Lee Yong Pil, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
“We will not step back as long as there’s a nuclear threat to us from the United States,” added Lee, who is director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies.
“A preemptive nuclear strike is not something the U.S. has a monopoly on,” he said. “If we see that the U.S. would do it to us, we would do it first. … We have the technology.”
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North Korea Says It Has Conducted Its Strongest-Ever Nuclear Test
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Exclusive: U.S. Intel Prepare for Possible Election Day Cyber Attacks
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James' World 2 