Representations of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dash plunge into water in this illustration taken, May 23, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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Aug 9 (Reuters) – Another day, another hack – and another blockchain bridge burned.
When thieves stole an estimated $190 million from U.S. crypto firm Nomad last week, it was the seventh hack of 2022 to target an increasingly important cog in the crypto machine: Blockchain “bridges” – strings of code that help move crypto coins between different applications. read more
So far this year, hackers have stolen crypto worth some $1.2 billion from bridges, data from London-based blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shows, already more than double last year’s total.
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“This is a war where the cybersecurity firm or the project can’t be a winner,” said Ronghui Hu, a professor of computer science at Columbia University in New York and co-founder of cybersecurity firm CertiK.
“We have to protect so many projects. For them (hackers) when they look at one project and there’s no bugs, they can simply move on to the next one, until they find a one weak point.”
At present, most digital tokens run on their own unique blockchain, essentially a public digital ledger that records crypto transactions. That risks projects using these coins becoming siloed, reducing their prospects for wide use.
Blockchain bridges aim to tear down these walls. Backers say they will play a fundamental role in “Web3” – the much-hyped vision of a digital future where crypto’s enmeshed in online life and commerce.
Yet bridges can be the weakest link.
The Nomad hack was the eighth-biggest crypto theft on record. Other thefts from bridges this year include a $615 million heist at Ronin, used in a popular online game, and a $320 million theft at Wormhole, used in so-called decentralised finance applications. read more
“Blockchain bridges are the most fertile ground for new vulnerabilities,” said Steve Bassi, co-founder and CEO of malware detector PolySwarm.
Reuters Graphics
ACHILLES HEEL
Nomad and others companies that make blockchain bridge software have attracted backing.
Just five days before it was hacked, San Francisco-based Nomad said it had raised $22.4 million from investors including major exchange Coinbase Global (COIN.O). Nomad CEO and co-founder Pranay Mohan called its security model the “gold standard.”
Nomad did not respond to requests for comment.
It has said it is working with law enforcement agencies and a blockchain analysis firm to track the stolen funds. Late last week, it announced a bounty of up to 10% for the return of funds hacked from the bridge. It said on Saturday it had recovered over $32 million of the hacked funds so far.
“The most important thing in crypto is community, and our number one goal is restoring bridged user funds,” Mohan said. “We will treat any party who returns 90% or more of exploited funds as a white hats. We will not prosecute white hats,” he said, referring to so-called ethical hackers.
Several cyber security and blockchain experts told Reuters that the complexity of bridges meant they could represent an Achilles’ heel for projects and applications that used them.
“A reason why hackers have targeted these cross-chain bridges of late is because of the immense technical sophistication involved in creating these kinds of services,” said Ganesh Swami, CEO of blockchain data firm Covalent in Vancouver, which had some crypto stored on Nomad’s bridge when it was hacked.
For instance, some bridges create versions of crypto coins that make them compatible with different blockchains, holding the original coins in reserve. Others rely on smart contracts, complex covenants that execute deals automatically.
The code involved in all of these can contain bugs or other flaws, potentially leaving the door ajar for hackers.
BUG BOUNTIES
So how best to address the problem?
Some experts say audits of smart contracts could help to guard against cyber thefts, as well as “bug bounty” programmes that incentivise open-sourced reviews of smart contract code.
Others call for less concentration of control of the bridges by individual companies, something they say could bolster resiliency and transparency of code.
“Cross-chain bridges are an attractive target for hackers because they often leverage a centralized infrastructure, most of which lock up assets,” said Victor Young, founder and chief architect at U.S. blockchain firm Analog.
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Reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char
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Anne Heche attends the premiere for the film “The Tender Bar” at The TLC Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 12, 2021. REUTERS/Aude Guerrucci
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LOS ANGELES, Aug 8 (Reuters) – Hollywood actress Anne Heche remained hospitalized in critical condition, comatose and connected to a breathing machine on Monday, four days after suffering severe injuries in a fiery Los Angeles car crash, a spokesperson for the performer said.
Heche, 53, has been hospitalized since shortly after the compact car she was driving sped out of control in a Westside neighborhood of Los Angeles late Friday morning, plowed into a house and burst into flames, according to police.
No one inside the home was hurt, but the impact set the dwelling ablaze, requiring a response by dozens of firefighters.
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A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson said on Monday the cause and circumstances of the crash remain under investigation.
Heche is in a coma and has not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident, said Michael McConnell, a member of the Los Angeles talent management company representing her, Zero Gravity Management.
“At this time, she is in extreme critical condition,” he told Reuters in a text message, adding that Heche “has significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention.”
The Los Angeles Times quoted a Venice Beach salon owner, Richard Glass, recounting a visit by Heche to his shop shortly before the accident, describing her as “a sweet little girl” as she purchased a red wig on Friday morning.
Heche came to prominence for her Emmy-winning work on the daytime television drama “Another World” and went on to star in other screen roles including the HBO series “Hung” and such films as “Wag the Dog” and “Cedar Rapids.”
She made tabloid headlines in the late 1990s for an affair with comedian Ellen DeGeneres around the time that DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian. Following their split, Heche wed cameraman Coleman Laffoon, but they later divorced, and she spent some years after that in a relationship with actor James Tupper, her co-star in the short-lived TV show “Men in Trees.”
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Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Stephen Coates
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Broken Ethernet cable is seen in front of Google logo in this illustration taken March 11, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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Aug 8 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google services appeared to be back up after facing a brief global disruption on late Monday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
Reports of the outage dropped to less than 500 incidents in the United States, as per Downdetector, which collates status reports from a number of sources.
At the peak of outage, more than 30,000 user reports had indicated issues with Google in the United States alone, as of 0130 GMT.
Nearly 5,900 users reported problems in Japan, the tracking website said, adding that the disruption was also witnessed in Canada and Australia.
Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
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Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips
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Aug 8 (Reuters) – Pfizer Inc on Monday agreed to pay $5.4 billion in cash for sickle cell disease drugmaker Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT.O), as it looks to capitalize on a surge in revenue from its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.
Pfizer will pay $68.50 per GBT share, which represents a 7.3% premium to its Friday closing price and a nearly 43% premium over Thursday’s closing price after Bloomberg reported that GBT had attracted takeover interest. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Pfizer was in advanced talks to buy it.
Pfizer’s 2021 revenue of $81.3 billion was nearly double the mark from the previous year, due to COVID-19 vaccine sales. With the addition of its COVID-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid, Pfizer is expected to generate around $100 billion in revenue this year, but sales from both products are expected to decline going forward.
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Pfizer has been on the lookout for acquisitions that could bring in billions in annual sales by the end of the decade.
“We have very deliberately taken a strategy of diversification in our M&A deals,” Aamir Malik, Pfizer’s top dealmaker, said in an interview. He said the company was focused on improving growth for the second half of the decade, rather than large deals that generate value through cost cuts.
“We think that there are opportunities across all therapeutic areas that we’re active in,” Malik said, noting the company was agnostic about size for future deals.
Pfizer logo and stock graph are seen in this illustration taken, May 1, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
In May, Pfizer struck an $11.6 billion deal for migraine drug maker Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding (BHVN.N) and recently also completed a $6.7 billion deal to buy Arena Pharmaceuticals.
With the acquisition of Global Blood Therapeutics, Pfizer adds sickle cell disease treatment Oxbryta, which was approved in 2019 and is expected to top $260 million in sales this year. It will also pick up two pipeline assets – GBT601 and inclacumab – targeting the same disease.
Pfizer said if they are all approved, it believes GBT’s drugs could generate more than $3 billion in sales annually at their peak.
Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in the United States.
GBT Chief Executive Officer Ted Love said Pfizer’s resources and multinational infrastructure will allow the company to launch Oxbryta in additional markets and boost its uptake.
“We really have no infrastructure outside of that (U.S. and western Europe) and it takes time and money to build out those infrastructures and Pfizer already has all of it,” Love said.
Shares of Global Blood rose 4.5% following the deal announcement. Pfizer shares closed up marginally at $49.41 apiece on Monday.
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Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, David Evans and Lincoln Feast.
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The Boeing logo is displayed on a screen, at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., August 7, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
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WASHINGTON, Aug 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Monday approved the first Boeing (BA.N) 787 Dreamliner for delivery since 2021, clearing the way for American Airlines to take possession, people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
American Airlines (AAL.O) said it expects to receive its first Boeing 787 delivery of the year as early as Wednesday and that the plane will enter commercial service in the coming weeks. The plane is its first 787 delivery since April 2021.
Earlier on Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it expected Boeing to resume deliveries of its 787 in coming days after the manufacturer made inspection and retrofit changes needed to meet certification standards.
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Boeing halted deliveries in May 2021 after the FAA raised concerns about its proposed inspection method. In September 2020, the FAA said it was investigating manufacturing flaws in some 787 jetliners.
American Airlines said on a July earnings call it expects to receive nine 787s this year, including two in early August. It has 42 on order, excluding the plane it expects to receive this week.
Boeing said it continues “to work transparently with the FAA and our customers towards resuming 787 deliveries.”
Last month, the FAA approved Boeing’s plan for specific inspections to verify the airplane meets requirements and that all retrofit work has been completed.
Boeing has about 120 787s awaiting delivery. The FAA said it “will inspect each aircraft before an airworthiness certificate is issued and cleared for delivery.” Typically the FAA delegates airplane ticketing authority to the manufacturer but in some instances like the 737 MAX it has retained responsibility for approving each new airplane.
In the aftermath of two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, the FAA pledged to more closely scrutinize Boeing and delegate fewer responsibilities to Boeing for aircraft certification.
On Thursday, Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen met with FAA safety inspectors in South Carolina as the agency mulled whether to allow Boeing to resume 787 deliveries.
Before Boeing suspended production, the FAA had previously issued two airworthiness directives to address production issues for in-service airplanes. It identified a new issue in July 2021.
The planemaker had resumed deliveries in March 2021 after a five-month hiatus before halting them again. The FAA said earlier it wanted Boeing to ensure it “has a robust plan for the re-work that it must perform on a large volume of new 787s in storage” and that “Boeing’s delivery processes are stable.”
In January, Boeing disclosed a $3.5 billion charge due to 787 delivery delays and customer concessions, and another $1 billion in abnormal production costs stemming from production flaws and related repairs and inspections.
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Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter, Cynthia Osterman and David Gregorio
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Auto stocks up on Senate approval of bill with EV funding
Nvidia slides as slump in gaming demand hits Q2 revenue
Dow closes up 0.09%, Nasdaq down 0.1%, S&P 500 0.12%
Aug 8 (Reuters) – Wall Street closed mostly flat on Monday after blockbuster jobs data last week reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve will crack down on inflation, while a revenue warning from chipmaker Nvidia reminded investors of a slowing U.S. economy.
Stocks retreated from earlier highs as last week’s blowout labor market report was initially seen as a sign the economy could withstand aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed to tame inflation running at four-decade highs.
Investors now await consumer price data on Wednesday to gauge whether the Fed might ease a bit in its inflation fight and provide better footing for the economy to grow. read more
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“The CPI data will help to confirm if the Fed’s tightening efforts have been successful in starting to tame inflation or if continued Fed tightening is needed,” said Robert Schein, chief investment officer at Blanke Schein Wealth Management.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 29.07 points, or 0.09%, to 32,832.54, while the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 5.13 points, or 0.12%, to 4,140.06 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 13.10 points, or 0.1%, to 12,644.46.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.01 billion shares.
The S&P 500 has bounced back 14% from mid-June lows. But signs of inflation running too hot could cement the Fed’s case for aggressive monetary policy tightening. read more
Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise in Troy, Michigan, said the market was due to pull back at some point as traders test the recent rebound.
“Maybe we can get a little bit higher by year end, but that’s if everything lines up perfectly,” he said, adding that the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment survey for August on Friday also will be closely watched.
“That’s the tug of war between these data sets that tell the story about, ‘Hey, are we going to turn into a recession or avoid one?'”
Traders work on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., August 8, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Read More
U.S. rate futures have priced in a 67.5% chance of a 75-basis-point hike at the Fed’s next meeting in September, up from about 41% before the labor market data beat market expectations. FEDWATCH
The information technology sector (.SPLRCT) fell 0.9% as chipmaker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) slid 6.3% after the company said it expects second-quarter revenue to decline 19% from the prior quarter to about $6.7 billion, due to weakness in gaming.
The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) slid 1.6%, while value stocks (.IVX) rose 0.1% to outpace a 0.4% drop in growth.
Tesla (TSLA.O) rose 0.8% as the U.S. electric-car maker signed contracts worth about $5 billion to buy battery materials from nickel processing companies in Indonesia, according to a CNBC report. read more
Shares of U.S. automakers jumped after the U.S. Senate on Sunday passed a $430 billion bill to fight climate change that created a $4,000 tax credit for used electric vehicles and provides billions in funding for their production. read more
Rivian Automotive Inc (RIVN.O) rose 6.78%, Ford Motor Co gained 3.14%, General Motors Co (GM.N) added 4.16% and Lordstown Motors Corp (RIDE.O) advanced 3.17%.
Signify Health Inc shot up 11.0% on a media report that CVS Health Corp was looking to buy the health technology company.
Palantir Technologies Inc (PLTR.N) dropped 14.2% after the data analytics software company lowered its annual revenue forecast as the timing of some large government contracts remained uncertain. read more
Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) fell 8.4% after missing quarterly profit expectations. read more
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.28-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.67-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted eight new 52-week highs and 29 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 104 new highs and 27 new lows.
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Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Aniruddha Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Cynthia Osterman
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Aug 8 (Reuters) – Wall Street stocks were mostly flat on Monday, the dollar weakened and U.S. government bond yields fell as investors weighed mixed messages on inflation and how aggressive the Federal Reserve might be in combating it.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose just 0.09% on the day, while the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 0.12% and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 0.1% read more
Of note was Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), whose stock declined around 6% after the chip designer warned on Monday that its second-quarter revenue would drop by 19% from the prior quarter on weakness in its gaming business. read more
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The broad Euro STOXX 600 (.STOXX) finished up around 0.75% on Monday, led by cyclical and growth stocks, helping it recover losses from Friday. But the MSCI world equity index (.MIWD00000PUS), which tracks shares in 47 countries, added just 0.15%. read more
“With labor market strength, the threat of a recession seems remote, but concerns over how aggressive the Federal Reserve could be hovers over the market,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, said in an email.
Indeed, higher interest rates remained in focus for investors.
Unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs data last week raised the stakes for the July U.S. consumer prices report due on Wednesday, which could see a further acceleration in inflation — and more aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
Business investment appeared to be an early victim of rising prices and rates, according to new U.S. government data. read more
At the same time, U.S. consumers’ expectations for where inflation will be in a year and three years dropped sharply in July, a New York Federal Reserve survey showed on Monday, a win for policy makers. read more
On Monday, benchmark 10-year note yields fell to 2.751%, after getting as high as 2.869% on Friday, the highest since July 22. Two-year yields were last at 3.211%, after reaching 3.331% on Friday, the highest since June 16.
‘OTHER SIDE OF THAT MOUNTAIN’
“The rise in inflation and the Fed’s reaction to it has been a real headwind for valuations this year,” Morgan Stanley strategists wrote in a note on Monday. “However, it’s also been a tailwind for earnings. Now, we are on the other side of that mountain, and operating leverage is rolling over likely more than the consensus expects.”
Fed funds futures traders are now pricing for a 67.5% chance of another 75 basis point rate increase in September, and for the Fed funds rate to rise to 3.65% by March, from 2.33% now.
“We see inflation staying above the Fed’s 2% target through next year,” BlackRock Investment Institute strategists wrote in a note on Monday. “We think the Fed will keep responding to calls to tame inflation until it acknowledges how that would stall growth.”
In foreign exchange markets, the U.S. dollar dipped around 0.2% versus a basket of six major currencies to 106.4 , giving up some gains after strengthening on the jobs boom and the jump in yields. read more
Economic surprises
Analysts remained bullish on the U.S. currency’s prospects.
“Data like this will further any thoughts about ‘U.S. exceptionalism’ and is very positive for the USD against all currencies,” said Alan Ruskin, global head of G10 FX strategy at Deutsche Bank, referring to the U.S. jobs statistics.
The euro declined slightly to $1.019 .
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which tend to act as a barometer for risk appetite, gained. Bitcoin was last up 3.25% at $23,942.
Italy spread
Gold broke higher on Monday as the dollar and Treasury yields retreated. Spot gold rose 0.8% to $1,788 per ounce, after dropping 1% in the previous session. U.S. gold futures were 0.76% higher at $1,786.
Oil prices rebounded some on Monday but were still near their lowest levels in months in volatile trading as positive economic data from China and the United States spurred hopes for demand growth despite recession fears. read more
U.S. crude recently rose 1.79% to $90.59 per barrel and Brent was at $96.40, up 1.59% on the day.
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Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne in Boston, Tom Wilson in London and Wayne Cole in Sydney; Editing by Jane Merriman, Peter Graff and Lisa Shumaker
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Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were found guilty in February of interference with rights — a federal hate crime — and attempted kidnapping in connection with the 25-year-old Black man’s 2020 killing, with the jury accepting prosecutors’ argument the defendants acted out of racial animus toward Arbery.
Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery, was also found guilty of using and carrying a Remington shotgun while his father, Gregory was found guilty of using and carrying a .357 Magnum revolver.
The McMichaels and Bryan already are serving life sentences after being convicted in state court on a series of charges related to Arbery’s killing, including felony murder. The crimes, months before the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, were in some ways harbingers of the nationwide protests that erupted that summer as demonstrators decried how people of color sometimes are treated by law enforcement.
For their federal convictions, the McMichaels and Bryan could face additional life sentences and steep fines. To make their case, federal prosecutors focused on how each defendant had spoken about Black people in public and in private, using inflammatory, derogatory and racist language.
Prosecutors and Arbery’s family had said he was out for a jog — a common pastime for the former high school football player — on February 23, 2020, when the defendants chased and killed him in their neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia.
Defense attorneys argued the McMichaels pursued Arbery in a pickup truck through neighborhood streets to stop him for police, believing he matched the description of someone captured in footage recorded at a home under construction. Prosecutors acknowledged Arbery had entered the home in the past, but he never took anything.
The defense also argued Travis McMichael shot Arbery in self-defense as they wrestled over McMichael’s shotgun. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck after seeing the McMichaels follow Arbery in their pickup as he ran; Bryan recorded video of the shooting.
Two prosecutors initially instructed Glynn County police not to make arrests, and the defendants weren’t arrested for more than two months — and only after Bryan’s video of the killing surfaced, sparking the nationwide outcry.
CNN’s Jason Hanna and Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.
Aug 7 (Reuters) – The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records.
The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno – the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post – examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County.
The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.
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DePerno did not respond to a request for comment.
The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.
In Arizona last week, three Trump-backed candidates who claim the 2020 election was stolen won Republican primary elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, the top official overseeing elections. In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has vowed to decertify any election he considers fraudulent through his appointed secretary of state. Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania are all presidential election battlegrounds.
Trump lavished praise on DePerno before a large audience this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. “He’s going to make sure that you are going to have law and order and fair elections,” Trump said, pumping his fist as DePerno stood up in the audience and waved. “That’s an important race.”
Reuters established the connection between Michigan’s DePerno and the Richfield voting-system breach by matching the serial number of the township’s tabulator to a photograph in a publicly released report written by a member of DePerno’s team. The photograph showed a printed record of a vote-tabulator’s activity, which also included a string of ten digits. Reuters confirmed that those numbers matched the serial number of a Richfield vote tabulator through public records obtained from the township. State officials had previously identified Richfield as the site of a voting-equipment security breach.
DePerno had submitted the report as evidence in a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in a different Michigan county, Antrim. The report claimed that Dominion and ES&S election equipment was vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.
Reuters asked an election-security expert to review the materials. Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist for the nonpartisan Citizens for Better Elections, an election-security advocacy organization, said the matching numbers indicate that DePerno’s team had access to the Richfield Township tabulator or its data drives.
DePerno led the “Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit & Investigation Team,” which included himself, Detroit attorney Stefanie Lambert, private investigator Michael Lynch, and James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency, according to promotional material for a July 2021 fundraising event in California sponsored by a conservative group that advertised appearances by DePerno’s team members. Penrose, who had assisted other prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, authored the report that Reuters tied to a tabulator involved in the Richfield Township security breach.
Lambert, Lynch and Penrose did not respond to requests for comment.
The previously unreported link to GOP attorney general candidate DePerno and his associates comes as Democratic incumbent Nessel advances her probe, which she launched in February 2022. Nessel is seeking re-election, which would create a conflict of interest if her political opponent became a suspect in her office’s investigation.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the specifics of its investigation but said Nessel would “take appropriate steps to remove herself and her department should a conflict arise.”
Those steps include requesting a special prosecutor to look into the election breaches, according to a letter from the attorney general advising the secretary of state of the request. The request was sent to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, an autonomous entity within the attorney general’s office that would decide whether a special prosecutor is warranted.
Nessel’s office started investigating the voting-system security breaches after a request from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. In a February statement, Benson said that “at least one unnamed third party” had gained access to tabulation machines and data drives from Richfield Township and Roscommon County.
Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said the office does not believe DePerno’s team had legal approval to access ES&S voting equipment. Rollow declined to comment further on the attorney general’s investigation but emphasized its importance. “To ensure Michigan’s elections are secure in the future, there must be consequences now for the people who illegally accessed the state’s voting machines,” he said.
ES&S did not respond to requests for comment.
SEIZING ON A GLITCH
Voting and vote-counting equipment is subject to strict chain-of-custody requirements to ensure accuracy and guard against fraud. Access to tabulators is tightly restricted, and any machine compromised by an unauthorized person is typically taken out of commission.
The four cases being investigated by Nessel are among at least 17 incidents identified by Reuters nationwide in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment. Michigan accounts for 11 of them, reflecting how conspiracy theorists sought to capitalize on an error in the initial reporting of 2020 results in Antrim County to allege widespread fraud in the state, without evidence.
A state review of the Antrim County incident found that a failure to properly update software caused a computer glitch that resulted in county officials initially reporting Joe Biden as the winner of the reliably Republican county. The officials quickly acknowledged and corrected the mistake, and Trump’s victory was affirmed by a hand tally of every vote cast.
DePerno seized on the confusion, filing a lawsuit making the unfounded claim that tabulators made by Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems had been rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden in Antrim County.
“No evidence of machine fraud or manipulation in the 2020 election has ever been presented in Michigan or any other state, and courts in Michigan and elsewhere have dismissed such claims as baseless,” Dominion spokesman Tony Fratto said.
In early December 2020, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer granted DePerno’s legal team permission to take forensic images of Antrim County voting equipment to search for evidence of election fraud. The court order was limited to Antrim, where only Dominion equipment was used. The order did not extend to other jurisdictions or machines made by other voting-system providers.
Yet DePerno’s team submitted two reports in April 2021 to the court that revealed they had also examined equipment made by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
The report written by Penrose, dated April 9, contained a photograph of a “summary tape” with information about a tabulator’s activity on election night, such as when results were submitted to the county. Among other things, the tape showed a sequence of figures: 0317350497.
That is the serial number for one of two ES&S DS200 tabulators Richfield Township used during the 2020 vote, according to copies of documents obtained by Reuters through a public-records request.
Skoglund, the election-security specialist consulted by Reuters, said the matching numbers indicate that the report’s author had access to either Richfield’s tabulator or a data drive containing the results and other information on the machine.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Penrose photograph is output from that same DS200 — that he had physical hands-on access,” Skoglund told Reuters.
A second person familiar with the workings of ES&S voting equipment examined the records obtained by Reuters and concurred that the tabulator tape shown in the Penrose report matches the machine with the same serial number.
MORE MACHINES
The Penrose report was part of a series of submissions from DePerno’s team that failed to convince Judge Elsenheimer. At an April 12, 2021 hearing, the judge shut down DePerno’s attempt to subpoena several Michigan counties for access to election data and equipment.
DePerno gave an interview later the same day to two right-wing websites, Gateway Pundit and 100 Percent Fed Up. DePerno said that Penrose had examined an ES&S machine. He added that the team had also looked at Dominion equipment “outside of Antrim County.” The attorney said he didn’t consider Elsenheimer’s ruling a dead-end.
“Maybe there will be some county somewhere that decides to come forward and cooperate. That would be nice,” DePerno told the websites.
In reality, DePerno’s associates had already taken possession of voting machines from local officials in Richfield Township in Roscommon County and Lake Township in Missaukee County, according to police records and text messages acquired through public records requests.
Lynch, the private investigator who worked with DePerno on his Antrim county case, exchanged texts with Lake Township clerk Korinda Winkelmann on March 20, 2021. Lynch asked for help accessing a Dominion device she had provided to him, according to the messages, obtained by Reuters through a public-records requests. Winkelman shared with Lynch an operational manual and a password for the device, while also speculating on how election systems might be rigged.
Lynch had no authorization to examine the machine, and the incident remains under state investigation. Winkelmann did not respond to requests for comment.
Elsenheimer dismissed the Antrim suit in May 2021, a decision that was affirmed this year by the Michigan Court of Appeals. DePerno’s fraud claims have been widely debunked. A Republican-led Michigan Senate committee issued a scathing report in June 2021 that called DePerno’s various allegations “demonstrably false.”
In September 2021, Trump endorsed DePerno as the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, praising his pursuit of “fair and accurate elections” and his ongoing effort to “reveal the truth about the Nov. 3 presidential election scam.”
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Reporting by Nathan Layne; additional reporting by Peter Eisler; editing by Brian Thevenot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The killings of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, Aftab Hussein, 41, and Naeem Hussain, 25, all have one commonality: the victims were all Muslim and of South Asian descent, according to Albuquerque police.
The three most recent killings happened within the span of two weeks, putting the city on edge as police probed for potential links between the attacks, and put a spotlight on an unsolved homicide from November 2021.
“While we are still sifting through all the evidence to look for more connections, it is deeply troubling that these three men were Muslim and of similar descent,” deputy commander of Albuquerque Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, Kyle Hartsock, said.
Police have not come out with any descriptions of a suspect or suspects in the killings. They have, however, said they are seeking “a vehicle of interest,” which may be connected to the four killings. The vehicle is a dark silver sedan-style Volkswagen Jetta or Passat with tinted windows.
Here’s what we know about the killings and the investigation so far:
How did the killings happen?
The most recent of the killings was reported Friday, when Naeem Hussain was found dead by Albuquerque police officers who responded to reports of a shooting just before midnight in the area of Truman Street and Grand Avenue.
After the discovery, Albuquerque police said the homicide “may be connected” to three previous killings of Muslim men from South Asia.
Those three men — Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, Aftab Hussein and Mohammad Ahmadi — were all “ambushed with no warning, fired on and killed,” Hartsock previously said.
Two of them, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain and Aftab Hussein, were both Pakistani men and were killed in Southeast Albuquerque near Central Avenue. Police said they “determined there is a connection” between those two deaths.
Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was shot and killed on Aug. 1. He was found on a sidewalk in the area of Cornell Street and Lead Avenue.
Just days before, on July 26, Aftab Hussein was found with apparent gunshot wounds in the 400 block of Rhode Island. He later died as a result of his injuries, police said.
As investigators probed the recent killings, they turned their attention to the Nov. 7, 2021, homicide of Mohammad Ahmadi, a Muslim man from Afghanistan who was killed outside a business he ran with his brother on San Mateo Boulevard.
Who are the victims?
Naeem Hussain migrated as a refugee from Pakistan in 2016 — fleeing persecution as a Shia Muslim — and had just become a US citizen last month, according to his brother-in-law, Ehsan Shahalami.
He opened his own trucking business this year and was described as being a kind, generous and hardworking person.
The day he was killed, he had attended a funeral for the two recent victims and expressed fear about the shootings, according to a spokesman with a mosque in Albuquerque.
Muhammad Afzaal Hussain worked on the planning team for the city of Española. He had studied law and human resource management at the University of Punjab in Pakistan before receiving both master’s and bachelor degrees in community and regional planning from the University of New Mexico, according to a news release from the mayor.
“Muhammad was soft-spoken and kind, and quick to laugh,” Mayor John Ramon Vigil said in a news release last Wednesday. “He was well-respected and well-liked by his coworkers and members of the community.”
Few details have been released about the two other victims. Police said Mohammad Ahmadi was a Muslim man from Afghanistan and Aftab Hussein was a Muslim man from Pakistan.
Where does the investigation stand?
So far, police have released a flyer showing a “vehicle of interest” in all four killings. But it remains unclear who the car belongs to, or how they are potentially connected to the attacks.
Police said the vehicle “is suspected as being used as a conveyance in recent homicides of 4 Muslim men.”
“We have a very, very strong lead. We have a vehicle of interest … we have got to find this vehicle,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said. “We don’t know at this point what it is associated with, or who owns it.”
While police have not definitively said all four attacks are connected, they have said they are looking into whether it is the case.
“There is one strong commonality in all the victims; the race and religion,” Hartsock said in a Thursday briefing.
Authorities are asking the public to come forward with any information which might help in the investigation. Tips may be submitted to the Albuquerque Metro CrimeStoppers website.
How are local and national leaders responding?
After Friday’s killing, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Saturday she will send additional state police to Albuquerque.
“I am angered and saddened that this is happening in New Mexico, a place that prides itself on diversity of culture and thought. This is not who we are,” Grisham said in a statement. “We will not stop in our pursuit of justice for the victims and their families and are bringing every resource to bear to apprehend the killer or killers — and we WILL find them.”
The attacks have also drawn condemnation from President Joe Biden, who said he was “angered and saddened” by the attacks.
“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
The city is now increasing police presence at mosques, Muslim-affiliated schools and the University of New Mexico.
“Albuquerque is on edge right now, and I want to be clear that we, and our partners across law enforcement, are directing every possible resource to these cases. We will protect our community and bring the perpetrator of these crimes to justice. We unequivocally denounce these senseless killings and stand with our Muslim community against intolerance and violence in every form,” said Keller.
“We have heard from the community that the fear is so strong, there is a concern about even things like groceries and getting meals for certain folks in certain areas of town,” Keller said in a weekend briefing. “Our senior affairs department and our community safety department is going to be providing meals as long as we need, to anyone who needs a meal who is affected by this tragedy.”
Meanwhile, local and national Muslim groups have been warning residents to be cautious.
“We urge everyone to take precautions and be aware of your surroundings including making sure that you are not being followed home and avoid walking alone at night,” Islamic Center of New Mexico posted on Facebook. “This is especially true for our members living in the southeast part of the city where these killings have taken place.”
The center said while there is no evidence its mosque is being targeted, it is still taking steps to provide additional security measures.
“The lives of Albuquerque Muslims are in danger. Whoever is responsible for this horrific, hateful shooting spree must be identified and stopped — now,” stressed Council on American-Islamic Relations National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.
The Council is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of those responsible, the organization announced, calling the series of killings a “horrific, hateful shooting spree.”
CNN’s Claudia Dominguez, Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
