By Kirsty Needham and Michael Martina

SYDNEY (Reuters)—Former U.S. Marine pilot Daniel Duggan, who was arrested in Australia, is accused of breaking U.S. arms control law by training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers according to an indictment unsealed by a U.S. court.

The 2017 indictment said “Duggan provided military training to PRC (People’s Republic of China) pilots” through a South African flight school on three occasions in 2010 and 2012.

It lists unnamed co-conspirators including one South African and one British national who were executives of “a test flying academy based in South Africa with a presence in the PRC”, and a Chinese national who acquired military information for the Chinese military.

Britain announced a crackdown on its former military pilots working to train Chinese military fliers the same week Duggan was arrested in Australia.

Australian police provisionally arrested Duggan in the rural town of Orange at the request of the U.S. government in October, pending an extradition request by the United States.

Duggan’s lawyer, Dennis Miralis of Australian law firm Nyman Gibson Miralis, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the indictment.

He has previously said Duggan denies breaching any law, and is an Australian citizen who had renounced his U.S. citizenship.

The District of Columbia court on Friday unsealed the indictment and a U.S. warrant for Duggan.

The indictment said Duggan was allegedly contracted directly by the unnamed Chinese national to provide services to a Chinese state owned company, including evaluations of Chinese military pilot trainees, testing of naval aviation related equipment and instruction on tactics related to landing aircraft on aircraft carriers.

Duggan did not seek authorisation from the United States government to provide military training to China, although the U.S. State Department had informed him by email in 2008 this was required to train a foreign air force, it said.

The indictment alleges he travelled frequently between Australia, the United States, China and South Africa between 2009 and 2012, when he was a U.S. citizen and Australian citizen.

Duggan’s alleged violation of an arms embargo imposed on China by the United States also included providing aviation services in China in 2010, and providing an assessment of China’s aircraft carrier training, it said.

The indictment alleges the Chinese national brokered a deal between the South African flight school and a Chinese state owned enterprise to provide aircraft carrier landing training to Chinese military pilots in South Africa and China.

A T-2 Buckeye aircraft was purchased from a U.S. aircraft dealer for this training, by providing false information that resulted in the U.S. government issuing an export license, it said.

Duggan faces four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States by conspiracy to unlawfully export defense services to China, conspiracy to launder money, and two counts of violating the arms export control act and international traffic in arms regulations.

Duggan is being held in custody in Sydney and his case will return to a Sydney court on Friday.

A spokesperson said Australia’s Attorney-General’s Department “does not comment on extradition matters until after the person has been brought before the court pursuant to that extradition request”.

Duggan moved to Australia in 2002 after a decade in the U.S. Marines, later moving to Beijing in 2014 where he worked as an aviation consultant. He returned to Australia from China weeks before he was arrested, according to his lawyer.

Reuters previously reported that in 2014 Duggan shared a Beijing address with a Chinese businessman, Su Bin, who was arrested in Canada in July 2014 and sentenced to prison in the United States two years later after pleading guilty in a high-profile hacking case involving the theft of U.S. military aircraft designs.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Michael Martina in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller and Michael Perry)

The post Former US Marine Faces Charges for Allegedly Training Chinese Military Pilots appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

By Hannah Lang

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Shortly after U.S. regulators on Tuesday charged FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors, its new chief executive told lawmakers the crypto exchange’s implosion stemmed from poor management practices and inexperienced individuals at the helm.

“The FTX group’s collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced, non-sophisticated individuals,” said John Ray, who was named CEO of FTX after Bankman-Fried stepped down and the company filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11.

Ray also said there was virtually no distinction between the operations of FTX and Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm, which maintained close ties with his exchange.

“I’ve just never seen an utter lack of record keeping—absolutely no internal controls whatsoever,” Ray told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

It will take weeks, perhaps months, to secure all the group’s assets, Ray said.

Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday evening in the Bahamas and was set to appear before a magistrate Tuesday. U.S. federal prosecutors on Tuesday alleged that he committed fraud and violated campaign finance laws, and FTX’s founder and former CEO also faces additional charges by U.S. regulators.

The Bahamas attorney general’s office said it expects Bankman-Fried will be extradited to the United States.

Ray said in his testimony that he had hired a new chief financial officer, a head of human resources and administration, and a head of information technology. He has also appointed a board of directors, which is chaired by former U.S. Attorney Joseph Farnan.

Since he took over as CEO, Ray said he has established that customer assets at FTX were commingled with those of Alameda Research. Client funds were used to engage in margin trading, which exposed customers to massive losses, he said.

Ray also addressed why FTX US was included in the bankruptcy filing. Bankman-Fried has expressed confusion about that in media interviews, claiming the company’s U.S. entity was financially sound.

But Ray said such a step was necessary to avoid a “run on the bank” and to allow FTX’s new leadership to identify and protect its assets.

Bankman-Fried had also been scheduled to appear before the committee on Tuesday, and his testimony had been highly anticipated.

“Unfortunately, the timing of his arrest denies the public the opportunity to get the answers they deserve,” said the panel’s chair, Democratic U.S. Representative Maxine Waters.

“Rest assured that this committee will not stop until we uncover the full truth behind the collapse of FTX just a few months ago.”

(Reporting by Hannah Lang, Doina Chiacu, Moira Warburton; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

The post Dem Megadonor SBF’s ‘Grossly Inexperienced’ Management Led to FTX Collapse, New CEO Tells Lawmakers appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

(Reuters)—Alabama and Utah on Monday joined other U.S. states prohibiting the use of Chinese-owned short-video sharing app TikTok on state government devices and computer networks due to national security concerns.

The actions follow warnings from FBI Director Chris Wray last month who said the Chinese government could use the ByteDance-owned app to control data collection on millions of U.S. users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations.

“Disturbingly, TikTok harvests vast amounts of data, much of which has no legitimate connection to the app’s supposed purpose of video sharing. Use of TikTok involving state IT infrastructure thus creates an unacceptable vulnerability to Chinese infiltration operations,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said in a statement.

Her directive also orders executive branch agencies to take all necessary steps to prevent TikTok from accessing sensitive state data.

“We’re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the bandwagon to enact policies based on unfounded, politically charged falsehoods about TikTok,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a tweet on Monday that at least nine states have taken action on TikTok “based on the serious security threats it presents”.

Other U.S. states that have banned TikTok on state devices include Texas, Maryland and South Dakota.

Indiana has also sued the app, alleging that it is deceiving users about China’s access to their data and is exposing children to mature content.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 attempted to block new U.S users from downloading WeChat and TikTok, which would have effectively blocked the use of these apps in the United States, but lost a series of court battles.

In June 2021, President Joe Biden withdrew Trump’s executive orders that sought to ban the downloads and directed the Commerce Department to conduct a review of security concerns posed by the apps.

(Reporting by Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Baranjot Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

The post Alabama, Utah Become Latest States to Ban TikTok on Government Devices appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Tuesday, led by rate-sensitive megacap stocks, after a smaller-than-expected rise in U.S. consumer prices raised hopes that the Federal Reserve could soften its aggressive stance on interest rate hikes.

The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) touched a three-month high in early trade after data showed U.S. consumer prices barely rose in November amid declines in the cost of gasoline and used cars, leading to the smallest annual increase in inflation in nearly a year.

Rising bets on a potential slowdown in the pace of Fed’s rate hikes drove the S&P 500 Growth index (.IGX) and the S&P 500 Real Estate index (.SPLRCR) index to their highest in more than two months.

Fed funds futures prices implied a better-than-even chance that the Fed will follow an expected half-point interest rate hike this week, with smaller 25-basis point rate hikes at its first two meetings of 2023, that would bring the policy rate to the 4.75%-5.00% range.

“The Fed is going to continue to keep rates high, but there is a possibility that they’re going to pause later next year,” said Josh Markman, partner at Bel Air Investment Advisors.

“They (markets) are looking past the recession that is expected in 2023 and are looking six months out, where they’re seeing inflation beginning to ease. You’re going to get a little Santa Claus rally.”

Strategists at Morgan Stanley expect the Fed to put a stop to the rate hike cycle in March, leaving the peak Fed funds rate at 4.625%.

The U.S. Labor Department’s report showed consumer prices increased by 7.1% on an annual basis in November, while the core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, climbed 6.0%. Economists were expecting a 7.3% rise in headline CPI and a 6.1% rise in core rates.

The numbers follow November’s slightly higher-than-expected producer prices reading last week, which, however, pointed to a moderation in the trend.

The CBOE volatility index (.VIX), also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, hit a one-week low of 21.46 points, reflecting easing investor anxiety.

At 11:46 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was up 231.96 points, or 0.68%, at 34,237.00, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was up 55.72 points, or 1.40%, at 4,046.28, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was up 221.88 points, or 1.99%, at 11,365.62.

Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) shot up 23.8% after the biotechnology firm’s experimental vaccine in combination with Merck & Co Inc’s (MRK.N) blockbuster drug Keytruda showed promising results in a skin cancer study.

Pinterest Inc (PINS.N) jumped 11.9% after Piper Sandler upgraded the social media platform’s stock to “overweight” from “neutral”.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 5.16-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 2.21-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 18 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 74 new highs and 93 new lows.

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The United Nations on Tuesday announced its top priorities for restoring ecosystems from South America’s Atlantic Forest to the Ganges River in India.

With countries negotiating a global conservation pact at the U.N. nature summit in Montreal, the U.N. sought to boost momentum by naming 10 flagship restoration initiatives to receive funding and scientific expertise.

Without specifying how much money might be allocated, the U.N. said it hoped to add to the funds with private donations.

Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, told Reuters she hoped the initiative would demonstrate that restoration is possible. The agency estimates about 40% of the world’s land is degraded.

“You can, with a little concerted effort and some wonderful leadership at all levels of society, actually turn this around,” Andersen told Reuters.

While the COP15 negotiations aim for new conservation rules to prevent further nature loss, one of the two dozen proposed targets would see countries agreeing to restore 20% to 30% of degraded landscapes, including mountains, wetlands, deserts, and coastlines.

Altogether, the projects cover a total of some 68 million hectares (168 million acres) – an area bigger than France.

The U.N. selected its 10 projects for restoration through 2030 out of more than 150 applications. “We were looking for inspiration, we were looking for diversity, and we were looking for something that gives people hope,” said the UNEP’s Mirey Atallah, who helped coordinate the initiative.

There are efforts to regreen logged-out areas of the Atlantic Forest and clean the polluted Ganges; restore seagrass beds to protect endangered dugongs in the Persian Gulf around the United Arab Emirates; plant trees and savannahs for Africa’s Great Green Wall; and supporting traditional farming throughout drought-prone Central America.

The other five involve restoring diverse ecosystems in China, shoring up low-lying coastlines against storm surges and erosion on Indonesia’s main island of Java, building resilience in mountain communities of Europe and Africa, protecting three island nations’ corals, forests and communities, and restoring grasslands to the Kazakh steppe.

A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature found on Monday that restoration work is currently unfolding on 14 million hectares (35 million acres) across 18 countries, carried out with $26 billion in funding.

The U.N. plans to monitor progress on the 10 projects through tools like satellite imagery, Atallah said.

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An experimental cancer vaccine from Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) based on the messenger RNA (MRNA) technology used in successful COVID-19 vaccines has been shown to work against melanoma, sending Moderna shares more than 20% higher and driving up of other biotechs working on similar treatments.

A combination of Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine and Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda cut the risk of recurrence or death of the most deadly skin cancer by 44% compared with Keytruda alone in a mid-stage trial, the companies said on Tuesday.

The result was considered a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement,” the companies said.

Moderna shares were up nearly 23% at $202.80 on Tuesday, while Merck’s shares rose 1%. Shares of BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE), which also has successful mRNA vaccine technology, were up 6%, and tiny Gritstone Bio Inc (GRTS.O), which has a cancer vaccine in development, jumped 20% to $3.09.

The study is the first randomized trial to show that combining mRNA vaccine technology with a drug that revs up the immune response would offer a better result for melanoma patients and potentially for other cancers.

“It’s a tremendous step forward in immunotherapy,” Eliav Barr, Merck’s head of global clinical development and chief medical officer, said in an interview.

Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in a separate interview that the combination “has the capacity to be a new paradigm in the treatment of cancer.”

The ongoing study involved 157 patients with stage III/IV melanoma whose tumors were surgically removed before being treated with either the drug/vaccine combo or Keytruda alone with the aim of delaying disease recurrence.

The combination was generally safe and demonstrated the benefit compared with Keytruda alone after a year of treatment. Serious drug-related side effects occurred in 14.4% of patients who received the combination compared with 10% with Keytruda alone.

In October, Merck exercised an option to jointly develop and commercialize the treatment, known as mRNA-4157/V940, sharing costs and any profits equally. Merck and Moderna plan to discuss the results with regulatory authorities and start a large Phase III study in melanoma patients in 2023.

The Merck/Moderna collaboration is one of several combining powerful drugs that unleash the immune system to target cancers with mRNA vaccine technology. They are designed to target highly mutated tumors.

The personalized vaccine works in concert with Merck’s Keytruda, a so-called checkpoint inhibitor designed to disable a protein called programmed death 1, or PD-1, that helps tumors to evade the immune system.

To build the vaccine, researchers took samples of patients’ tumors and healthy tissue. After analyzing the samples to decode their genetic sequence and isolate mutant proteins associated only with the cancer, that information was used to design a tailor-made cancer vaccine.

When injected into a patient, the patient’s cells act as a manufacturing plant, producing perfect copies of the mutations for the immune system to recognize and destroy.

Moderna’s personalized vaccine can be made in about eight weeks, a time frame the company eventually hopes to halve, Burton said.

Barr said the companies intend to study the approach in other highly mutated cancers, such as lung cancer. Other such cancers include bladder cancers and some breast cancers.

Moderna mRNA rival BioNTech has several cancer vaccine trials in the works including one with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York testing a personalized vaccine in combination with Roche’s (ROG.S) Tecentriq in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Gritstone is testing a personalized, self-amplifying mRNA vaccine in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMY.N) immunotherapies Opdivo and Yervoy in a midstage trial in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Experts said the personalized vaccines were among several promising cancer vaccine ideas in the works after many failures in the field.

“In general, I think cancer vaccines are kind of at a tipping point, and there are going to probably be a lot of vaccines coming down the pipeline in the next five years,” said Dr. Mary Lenora Disis, director of the UW Medicine Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the speed, ease and safety of mRNA vaccines, they came out of years of cancer vaccine research, Disis said.

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A Twitter Blue subscription significantly increases the length limit for video uploads.

Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

• For most users, Twitter limits videos to 140 seconds in length.
• Even if your video is less than 140 seconds, be sure it’s less than 512 MB in size.
• Twitter Blue subscribers can tweet videos up to 10 minutes in length.

As the world’s most well-known microblogging site, Twitter is all about broadcasting short, pithy messages. Tweets are limited to 280 characters, so it stands to reason that videos have a similarly restrictive limit on overall length. In fact, videos on Twitter are limited to 140 seconds (with an important exception). 

How long can a Twitter video be?

For most users, Twitter limits videos to 140 seconds (two minutes and 20 seconds). There’s also a file size limit: videos can’t exceed 512 MB in size.

Users who subscribe to the new Twitter Blue paid service, though, can publish longer videos. Twitter Blue supports videos up to 10 minutes in length. To take advantage of this, though, you need to sign up for Twitter Blue, which currently costs $8 per month for Android users and $11 per month for iOS users. 

In both cases, you can upload longer files, but Twitter requires you to trim the video to length before including it in a Tweet. When you select a video to include in a Tweet, Twitter automatically opens the video in a video editor, which you can use to trim it down to an acceptable length by dragging the edit bars at the start and end of the video. 

If your video is too long for a tweet, you can trim the start and end in Twitter’s video editor.

Dave Johnson/Insider

Quick tip: To post longer videos to Twitter, you can upload your video to YouTube and then include a link to the YouTube video in your tweet.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at NATO headquarters in Brussels, May 25, 2017.

Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images

• Turkey’s Erdogan recently threatened to strike the capital of Greece with ballistic missiles. 
• In response, Greece’s top diplomat accused its fellow NATO ally of acting like North Korea.
• The two countries, which joined NATO together, have a historically troubled and rocky relationship. 

Greece’s top diplomat accused NATO ally Turkey of bringing a “North Korean-style” attitude to the military alliance after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened the country with missiles. 

“Threatening Greece with a missile attack by a NATO ally is both unacceptable and utterly condemnable,” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told reporters at the European Union in Brussels on Monday.

He added that “North Korean-style attitudes cannot and must not be allowed to enter into the North Atlantic Alliance,” a nod to illegal weapons development, hostile rhetoric, missile launches, and other provocative military acts by Pyongyang widely condemned by neighboring South Korea and much of the West. 

Dendias’ comments came shortly after Erdogan traveled over the weekend to a city in northern Turkey for a town hall meeting, where he said the country had started developing short-range ballistic missiles, the Associated Press reported. Erdogan said the development was “frightening” Greece.  

The Greeks “say ‘It can hit Athens,'” Erdogan said, according to the report. “Of course it will. If you don’t stay calm, if you try to buy things from the United States and other places [to arm)] the islands, a country like Turkey … has to do something. “

Despite the fact that both countries are part of NATO — even joining the alliance together in 1952 — the two countries historically have endured a troubled and rocky relationship. Athens and Ankara have come close to war on several occasions, and ties between the two countries have only worsened in recent years. 

Their tensions are rooted in disputes surrounding islands in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean seas and include issues related to maritime boundaries, divided Cyprus, and militarization. 

In September, Erdogan accused Greece of occupying demilitarized islands in the Aegean Sea and threatened that Turkey could “come down suddenly one night” — a cryptic remark possibly hinting about a future attack. “Look at history, if you go further, the price will be heavy,” he said. 

His comments drew sharp criticism from Greece, which warned its allies that such rhetoric could trigger another conflict in Europe, apparently alluding to Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. 

Ongoing tensions between Turkey and its NATO allies extend beyond Greece, too. In recent weeks, Turkey has targeted the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in a bombing campaign after a deadly blast rocked Istanbul earlier in November. The campaign has added stress to the US partnership with the SDF, which Washington supports and works closely with in counterterrorism operations against ISIS. The US has also warned Turkey that its actions have put US forces at risk.

Taco Bell’s fries

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

• Yum Brands, the parent of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, hosted an investor day conference Tuesday.

• Taco Bell CEO Mark King spoke about competing with McDonald’s at breakfast and lunch.
• His playbook: make fries a forever menu item, and “commit” to breakfast. 

When Taco Bell debuted french fries in 2018, it became the chain’s most popular new menu item – ousting Doritos Locos Tacos.

It sold more than 53 million orders in the first five weeks. The seasoned fries, served with a side of nacho cheese, have rotated on and off the menu ever since, becoming Taco Bell’s version of the McDonald’s McRib.

Now, Taco Bell wants to use the fan favorite to take on McDonald’s at lunch.

During a Tuesday investor day presentation held by Yum Brands,  the owner of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, Taco Bell CEO Mark King said the brand is looking to make Nacho Fries a year-round menu item to compete with McDonald’s at lunch.

“We’re looking at bringing fries permanently to the menu,” Mark King told investors on Tuesday. 

Taco Bell CEO Mark King

Screenshot

King called breakfast and lunch a $1 billion sales opportunity, pointing to a slide showing McDonald’s as its main competitor.

The chain has dabbled with breakfast for several years, he said.  But “we have to commit” to breakfast to beat rivals like McDonald’s, he added. 

“There’s a big opportunity” for Taco Bell in breakfast and lunch, he said. 

McDonald’s has dominated the fast-food breakfast wars despite competition from Wendy’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell in recent years. During the pandemic, Taco Bell lost momentum at breakfast when it temporarily paused the morning meal offering as offices shut down. 

Taco Bell launched its first breakfast program, then dubbed FirstMeal, in 2012 after years of testing. Six years later, the Southern California-based chain, known for its Millennials and Gen Z appeal, added Nacho Fries to its menu.