Two intelligence agencies see advances in foreign tech that could cause ‘Havana syndrome’

WASHINGTON — Two U.S. intelligence agencies investigating a series of unexplained health incidents among U.S. government officials believe it is possible that foreign adversaries have developed advanced technology that could be responsible for the symptoms experienced in a small number of cases, known widely as “Havana syndrome,” the intelligence community said in a report published Friday.

The updated assessment from the two unidentified agencies marks a split from five other intelligence organizations within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence analyzing the phenomenon. Those five other agencies still assess that it is unlikely that foreign actors have the capability to conduct attacks that could cause the reported symptoms.

Since 2016, when a cluster of bizarre health incidents affected U.S. officials in Havana, hundreds of U.S. officials have reported similar symptoms of experiencing sudden and acute head pain and vertigo.

All seven agencies still lack any direct evidence that a foreign government is responsible for any specific episode, officials said.

One of the two agencies that changed their assessments from their last report on the matter, in 2023, said there is an even chance that a foreign actor has deployed technology that could be responsible for a “small, undetermined” subset of reported cases, but still cannot specify an affected cluster of cases.

The second agency only said that new evidence has emerged revealing that “foreign directed energy research programs have been making progress,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters Friday.

“The goal of our analysis is to find out what happened to them – not to question whether they had medical symptoms,” the official said. “Our analysis is focused only on considering foreign responsibility, and the intelligence does not link a foreign actor to these events. Indeed, it points away from their involvement, and analytic integrity is saying just that.”

—Miami Herald

Turkish businessman pleads guilty in NYC Mayor Adams’ corruption case, could testify against mayor

NEW YORK— Brooklyn real estate magnate Erden Arkan pleaded guilty on Friday in federal court to funneling thousands of dollars to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign in coordination with a Turkish government official, setting him up to testify against the mayor.

Speaking with a hoarse voice from the lower Manhattan courtroom, Arkan, 76, admitted to orchestrating straw donations to Adams’ mayoral campaign through workers of the construction company he partly owns, KSK, and then reimbursing them. Arkan indicated he planned to enter the plea last month — the first resulting from the ongoing probe of illicit foreign donations to the mayor’s campaign.

“When I wrote the checks, I knew the Eric Adams campaign would use the checks to apply for public matching funds,” Arkan said, referring to the system under which city political candidates get donations from local residents matched eightfold with city dollars.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia Cohen told the court that if Arkan had gone to trial, prosecutors would have provided testimony, photographs, video electronic records and other evidence to establish he illegally colluded with a Turkish consular official to funnel money to the mayoral campaign that Adams personally solicited at a restaurant in April 2021. Manhattan Federal Court Judge Dale Ho accepted Arkan’s plea and set his sentencing for Aug. 15.

While it wasn’t explicitly stated that the plea deal requires Arkan to testify against the mayor, his cooperation in the feds’ ongoing corruption investigation is all but certain, with Cohen asking his sentencing to be scheduled after Adams’ April trial. It is common for federal defendants who take plea deals to agree to testify or cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for leniency at sentencing.

The plea comes as prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office recently said in a filing they’d uncovered “additional criminal conduct” the mayor and others engaged in and may bring more charges.

Adams is accused of soliciting and accepting illegal straw donations from Arkan and others, as well as luxury travel upgrades and perks in exchange for doling out political favors for the Turkish government. He is expected to head to trial on the five counts of bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud in April — just two months before he’s up for reelection in the June primary.

He has pleaded not guilty.

—New York Daily News

Meta retreats from diversity and inclusion, appeasing Trump

Meta Platforms Inc. is disbanding many of its diversity and inclusion efforts, telling employees they will no longer be required to interview candidates from underrepresented backgrounds for open roles, or look to do business with diverse suppliers.

The note to employees, reviewed by Bloomberg News, represents a significant undoing of diversity, equity and inclusion priorities at the company. Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer and highest-ranking Black woman, will be reassigned to a new role, the memo states.

Axios earlier reported the news, which a Meta spokesperson confirmed.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been working to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump, who he recently met in person at Mar-a-Lago, after years of tension with the politician. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg halted Meta’s work with third-party fact-checking organizations.

Meta this week also updated its policies around what kind of content could be removed on its sites. These changes included new provisions allowing its users to at times wield insulting language “when discussing transgender rights, immigration or homosexuality” as well as to argue for gender or sexual orientation-based limitations on military, law enforcement and teaching jobs.

The new policy also removed protections against language that describes women as “household objects or property” as well as dehumanizing language focused on Black, transgender and nonbinary people.

Meta joins companies including Walmart Inc. and McDonald’s Corp. in a retreat from DEI policies. Amazon.com Inc. on Friday confirmed it is halting some of its diversity programs as part of a review of hundreds of initiatives.

—Bloomberg News

Maduro sworn in to third term as president of Venezuela despite fraud accusations; US increases reward for his capture

Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a third presidential term on Friday, despite overwhelming evidence that he lost July’s presidential election to opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez, who abandoned plans to travel back to his country to force the hand of the military into swearing him in instead.

Top opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told supporters in a video that after long conversations it was decided that it was best for Gonzalez to suspend his plans to travel to Venezuela on Friday because of fears the regime might shoot down his plane.

“In its delusional paranoia the regime not only has closed down Venezuela’s air space, but has also activated its air defense system,” Machado said in a video on social media. “Therefore we have decided that it is not convenient for Edmundo to travel to Venezuela. I have asked him not to do it because his physical integrity is fundamental for the regime’s final defeat and for a democratic transition, which is very near.”

Since early Friday, air traffic in Venezuela had severely been restricted and main roads connecting the country to Colombia had been blocked amid Maduro’s plans to stop Gonzalez, who left the country after the regime sought to arrest him, from returning. The goverment had also ordered soldiers to take control of the streets, and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said Gonzalez would be immediately arrested as soon as he set foot in the country.

In a video earlier this week, Cabello said that Gonzalez’s arrival would be treated as a foreign invasion and hinted that Venezuelan air defenses might shoot down the plane carrying him as if were dealing being used to traffic drugs.

Machado, who had been violently arrested and released the day before by the regime’s security forces, said that Maduro’s decision to proceed with the inauguration ceremony constituted a coup d’état, and asked all Venezuelans to exercise their right to protest.

On Thursday, Machado was violently detained by security forces as she left a rally.

Machado confirmed Friday that she was violently forced down the motorcycle in which she was traveling after the massive rally she attended and said that she felt pain and had bruises on her body, but that she was fine otherwise.

Maduro, meanwhile, took the oath of office Friday morning, two hours before it had been scheduled, in front of a very limited number of foreign guests that included Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega, and called the ceremony “a great victory for the Venezuela people.”

In response to Maduro’s decision to proceed with the inauguration despite the substantial evidence of fraud, the U.S. government on Friday announced that it had decided to increase the reward it has previously offered for the capture of Maduro and of Cabello to $25 million each and announced a $15 million reward for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.

—Miami Herald

_____