South Korean regulators on Monday welcomed productive talks with messaging app Telegram over a deepfake porn crisis in the country.

In August, media and authorities in South Korea uncovered a sprawling network of Telegram chat rooms, often set up in schools and universities, where users shared AI-generated deepfake porn depicting female students and staff.

The revelations sparked public outrage, the president promised tough action, and lawmakers have recently taken steps to criminalize owning or viewing deepfake porn.

The telecommunications regulator said on Monday that Telegram had fully complied with its requests to remove 148 videos last month, with the longest removal lasting 36 hours.

“Telegram accelerated our two-way communication by deleting all deepfake videos requested by the committee and immediately providing us with the results,” said Ryu Hee-lim, chairman of the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC).

“We assess the results of our first meeting positively and expect that illegal information in Telegram will be blocked and deleted more quickly,” he added.

The KCSC said the company claimed to “deeply understand the situation in Korea, where deepfake sex crimes have become a societal problem,” and promised a zero-tolerance policy toward such content.

Cybersecurity startup Security Hero recorded nearly 96,000 deepfake videos online worldwide last year, 53 percent of which featured South Korean singers and actresses.

Telegram’s “sudden move” to cooperate with South Korean authorities may be linked to the arrest in France of the app’s boss Pavel Durov, who is accused of failing to act against criminals, a cybersecurity professor told AFP.

“Telegram’s marketing argument is that it never partners with any government and that it is more secure than any other messaging app. “So they essentially lose their biggest selling point if this collaboration continues,” said Kim Seung-joo of Korea University.

KCSC’s Ryu said the commission had asked French authorities for urgent cooperation, without giving details.

Separately, South Korea’s police agency said on Monday that there had been “some progress in communications” with Telegram.

“I can’t give details at this point because it’s still in the early stages,” Woo Jong-soo, head of the National Police Agency’s investigation bureau, told reporters.

Police told AFP that this was the first time Telegram had responded since the agency requested information from members on the platform.

Police said they had received hundreds of reports of deepfake crimes and arrested 387 suspects.

Telegram did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

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WASHINGTON — The biggest crisis of Tim Walz’s time as Minnesota governor came in the hours and days after the killing of George Floyd, which divided the country on issues of race, policing and civil order.

The 46-year-old’s death in May 2020 at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin sparked thousands of protests on the streets of Minneapolis, with riots, looting and vandalism occurring across the city – and across the country. In the days that followed, Walz deployed the National Guard in his state to quell the unrest.

But the heated debate over how to handle the events remains a key talking point for Republicans. Ahead of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate in New York City between Republican candidate JD Vance and Walz, Republicans have put the Minnesota governor’s handling of the protests and controversy surrounding Floyd’s murder back in the spotlight.

WASHINGTON – Some Democrats fear that the corruption scandal involving New York City Mayor Eric Adams could hurt Vice President Kamala Harris in the neck-and-neck presidential race and hamper the party’s bid for control of the House of Representatives.

The nervousness comes as Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges on Thursday, has refused to resign while suggesting he is the victim of a White House vendetta.

“While he is innocent until proven guilty, I certainly do not believe he has been targeted by the Biden-Harris administration,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, a Democratic kingmaker, told USA TODAY. “This is garbage.”

The embattled mayor claims he is the victim of federal retaliation for complaining about the financial burden of accepting 210,000 asylum seekers from the southern border.

The 23-year-old was eliminated from the Japan Open on Sunday after his quarter-final duel against Frenchman Ugo Humbert.

Draper required treatment for an abdominal problem and, after trying to keep going, was forced to retire trailing 7-5, 2-1.

Draper’s camp says he doesn’t yet know the extent of the injury but believes the turnaround from Tokyo to Shanghai is happening too quickly.

Get well soon, @jackdraper0 😐

Unfortunately, with the score at 5:7, 1:2, Draper had to retire due to injury.#kinoshitajotennis pic.twitter.com/0a3lpf2Ak1

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) September 29, 2024

The Japan Open was Draper’s first ATP tournament since reaching the semifinals of the US Open earlier this month.

The world number 20 played for Great Britain in the Davis Cup a few days later, but lost both games.

Afterwards, Draper complained that the current tennis schedule was too busy.

“It’s a mental calendar,” he said. “There is literally no break. It’s really mentally and physically challenging.”

Draper had a first-round bye in Shanghai and would have faced either Hugo Gaston or Jaume Munar in the second round.

Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and world number one Jannik Sinner are in the draw.

The game at Elland Road was Sheaf’s first start since the final game of last season after he suffered an ankle injury and after just over an hour of play the midfielder said he was “feeling good physically” but knows “It will take a while for him to get fit again.”

“I’m happy to be out there, it’s been a frustrating time for me personally,” he said.

Now that he is back, Sheaf also knows that his role as captain – along with that of the other experienced players in the squad – is crucial to City finding their form and easing the pressure on boss Mark Robins.

“We had a good chat after the game – some positives came out of it,” said Sheaf.

“We have to remember that we do this because we love it. The gaffer said: ‘It’s Saturday afternoon, what do you want to do?’

“The games are tough – you want to look deeper and enjoy these moments.”

“We have to show a little more courage and more quality on the ball. There are many things we can do better.”

Simone Biles supports her husband in style!

On Sunday, September 29, the 27-year-old Olympian wore a super stylish look as she watched her husband Jonathan Owens at the Chicago Bears’ game against the Los Angeles Rams at Soldier Field.

Biles wore her husband’s team colors in the form of a striped navy, orange and white cropped sweater with “Bears” printed on the front, a white denim mini skirt, tall white boots and a matching white Balenciaga duty free bag.

The gymnast wore her hair in long, straight extensions and accessorized her look with black Gucci sunglasses, an animal pendant necklace and diamond stud earrings.

In a video posted to her Instagram Stories, 29-year-old Owens approaches BIles on the soccer field. The couple then kissed before he entered the stadium with his team. As a cute nod to her husband, Biles added “🤎🐻” to the top of the photo.

The proud gymnast also shared a bird’s eye view photo of the game from her seat in a box at the stadium – which the Bears won 24-18.

In a clip posted to the Chicago Bears’ official account on X (formerly Twitter), Biles was filmed walking backstage at the stadium, flashing a peace sign and pouting at the camera.

“Heyyyyy @Simone_Biles 👋,” the caption read.

Biles attended her husband’s game as their Gold Over America Tour also took place in Chicago that same evening.

The master gymnast is currently headlining the tour alongside Team USA gymnasts including Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, Hezly Rivera, Fred Richard and more, showcasing their skills in a nationwide gymnastics competition-meets-concert experience.

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On Saturday, September 28, Biles revealed on her Instagram Stories that her husband paid her a surprise visit before her performance at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, sharing a video of her and Owens holding hands.

She also posted a photo of the Chicago Bears player holding a large bouquet of 26 heart-shaped roses and smiling at her.

“THE BEST SURPRISE,” Biles wrote about the picture. “ilysfm.”

Why did Rosie Duffield leave Labor?published September 29 at 8:55 a.m. British Summer Time

08:55 BST September 29th

Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent

In the pre-recorded interview with Laura Kuenssberg – which we’ll be watching in full shortly – Rosie Duffield says Keir Starmer’s team is “more about greed and power than about making a difference”.

This is far from the first time Duffield has criticized Starmer. And it’s not the first time she has considered leaving Labour.

Her time as an MP since 2017 has seen public disagreements between her, some in her local party and the Labor leadership – both Sir Keir and Jeremy Corbyn before him.

In 2021, she said she would not attend the Labor conference because she had received threats over her stance on women’s rights and her views on gender self-identification.

Speaking to the BBC in 2022, Duffield stated that she felt snubbed by Sir Keir. “He doesn’t seem particularly interested in talking to me,” she said.

Earlier this year, Duffield was cleared by the party’s board after several internal complaints were made against her for anti-Semitism and transphobia. She “vigorously” denied the claims and said she had been “completely exonerated”.

At the beginning of her time as an MP there were also other attacks on her within the party.

In 2018, when Corbyn was party leader, she took part in a rally against anti-Semitism. She said she wanted to show solidarity with Jewish colleagues, some of whom had been “systematically mistreated” and threatened.

Local party members tried to reprimand her, but then relented when MPs rallied around a new colleague. Duffield said she believed some local members mistakenly thought she was trying to campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.

Two years ago she told the BBC: “We had to deal with the problem of anti-Semitism, which was huge and terrible, and I had no support from the leader at the time and there was an awful lot of abuse.”

However, she said she believes things are improving and she is no longer considering quitting the party.

That has now changed.

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers into different categories. It can be difficult. So read on if you need pointers.

What should you do when you’re done? Of course, play a few more word games. I also have daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers, and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help with that too.

Over 5,000 Indians were believed to be stranded in Cambodia, allegedly held against their will and forced to take part in cyber fraud. Government estimates suggest that Indians lost at least 500 million rupees to fraud in the six months leading up to March this year. In response to these issues, the Center set up the inter-ministerial panel to study and identify the gaps contributing to these problems identified in the banking, immigration and telecommunications sectors, the report added.

During the meeting, the Telecommunications Department reported that it has implemented several initiatives to improve the effectiveness of Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols for SIM card purchases.

The report quoted a source as saying that the ministry is shutting down about 21.7 million mobile connections obtained through forged or forged documents, those exceeding the prescribed limits and those misused for cybercrimes or financial fraud.

International fake calls

In May, the DoT directed telecom operators to block all incoming international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers. The source further added that the Telecommunications Ministry also pointed out that 35 percent of inbound international calls are currently blocked and full implementation is expected by December 31 this year.

At the meeting, the Defense Ministry said that in order to track roaming phone numbers linked to fraud operations in Southeast Asia, all telecommunications service providers (TSPs) have been directed to submit weekly data on Indian mobile phone numbers roaming in countries such as Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Myanmar.

The DoT reported that over 600,000 Indian SIM cards were in transit in the Southeast Asia region between April and June this year. There are more than 140,000 Point of Sale (PoS) agents selling these SIM cards across India. Authorities of all states and Union Territories have been asked to take appropriate legal action against PoS agents involved in selling these Indian SIM cards, which are reportedly being used in fraud operations in Southeast Asia.

A data analysis by the Indian Cyber ​​Crime Coordination Center (I4C), part of the MHA, has revealed a rise in cybercrimes against Indians, with about 45 percent of these crimes coming from the Southeast Asia region. Since January 2023, around 100,000 cyber complaints have been filed with the National Cyber ​​Crime Reporting Portal, the report said.

First published: September 30, 2024 | 3:05 p.m IS

After a town council shakeup, Micah Foster was suddenly mayor of his tiny eastern Wyoming agricultural town. A wave of resignations last April meant that in addition to getting up at 2 a.m. each day for his regular job—delivering bread to grocery stores for Bimbo Bakeries—Foster found himself running his 400-person town.

In June, as Foster was still adjusting to his new role, he got some good news. Lingle was awarded a $1.4 million American Rescue Plan Act grant to upgrade aging sewage pipelines—a big deal for any small town, sparing it from having to borrow the money because it cannot possibly raise rates high enough to cover such an expense. Lingle even secured the required 10% match from the state, Foster said.

But there was a hitch. To complete the required engineering plan, the town still needed the cooperation of BNSF Railway to cross its tracks on the south side—a slow process and an effort that the town’s small, overworked staff struggled to accomplish.

Wyoming officials, in July, reminded town leaders that the engineering plan must be complete, contracts signed and the project “shovel-ready” by Oct. 1, or the state would be forced to revert, or claw back, the grant to pre-empt the federal government from taking the money back—from Lingle and the state.

“There’s no way we can get that done,” Foster said, adding, “We’re not Cheyenne,” referring to the capital city’s advantage in having a full professional staff. “We don’t have an engineer on staff to do this and push it. So we were happy [when initially approved for the grant] and then we were sad.

“It’s like dangling a carrot in front of you but it was never really there,” he added.

Many Wyoming towns and entities that have been awarded ARPA grant dollars administered by the state worry they may suffer the same fate. In August, the Office of State Lands and Investments hosted a webinar with municipalities and others, striking a tone of urgency as staff reiterated the Oct. 1 deadline to prove ARPA grant projects are ready for shovels to hit dirt, or lose the money.

“We want to have this opportunity to make long-term investments with these dollars,” Wyoming Grants Management Office Administrator Christine Emminger told attendees. “So create the pressure on your contractors to get these dollars obligated, get them contracted at your local government or your entity level. Because if they are not contracted, and you do not provide that evidence to the Office of the State Lands and Investments (OSLI), we will have to go back and recapture those dollars.”

More than 50 of 159 state-administered ARPA grant recipients for water and sewer projects have yet to file completed compliance documents to avoid recapture, according to state officials.

“OSLI is in regular communication with all the entities that have not yet provided the necessary information, and are making every effort to provide assistance, where possible,” Gov. Mark Gordon’s press secretary Michael Pearlman told WyoFile. 

The state is also facing a tight deadline, and is at risk of losing potentially tens of millions of federal dollars that budget-strapped communities desperately need. Wyoming’s mineral royalty revenues, which used to fund such water infrastructure funds, are drying up due to the declining coal industry.

State officials, under the guidance of the governor’s office, will determine in October which ARPA grants to claw back, then rush to “redeploy” those dollars before the federal government’s Dec. 31 deadline, they say. Though Gordon has indicated his priorities for redeploying ARPA dollars, exactly who and what projects the state might choose before the end of the year is yet to be determined.

“Any funds available after the Oct. 1 deadline may be deployed to local governments to reimburse or reduce local matches for previously approved water infrastructure projects,” according to an Aug. 19 press release from the governor’s office.

Meanwhile, there’s an increasingly urgent need among Wyoming towns to update water and sewer systems.

The neighboring oil boom-and-bust towns of Midwest and Edgerton in the middle of the historic Salt Creek oilfield are relying on ARPA dollars to help cover an estimated $5 million cost to replace 7 miles of potable water pipeline at risk of corrosion due to acidic soils in the oilfield.

In the neighboring towns of Kemmerer and Diamondville (with a combined population of about 3,000) in the state’s southwest corner, town officials have described a chicken-and-egg dilemma to fund long-overdue upgrades necessary to not only meet current demands, but to meet the needs of construction workers arriving for the $4 billion Natrium nuclear energy project already underway. The construction workforce is expected to peak at 1,600 in 2028, although many of the workers will commute from other nearby towns, according to officials. Project developers, backed by both the U.S. Department of Energy and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, say it’s up to local government entities in Wyoming or the federal government to make any needed investments.

Human-caused climate change plays a role, too, forcing many towns to consider increasing competition for secure sources of water made more scarce due to warming and drying trends.

Cascading Water Challenges

Sometimes when you patch a leak, you spring another one down the line. Then another, and another.

That was the challenge for city water crews in Rawlins over Labor Day weekend. They chased and patched six leaks at gushing “weak points” in the aging municipal water system that serves both Rawlins and neighboring Sinclair without major interruptions to water deliveries, according to officials.

It’s a routine that many water crews in Wyoming towns have become well practiced at in recent years: Fixing one leak in a frangible network begets another—a result of depressurizing then re-pressurizing segments of pipe. The problem worsens when you’re dealing with an aging system long overdue for upgrades.

And towns like Rawlins aren’t just patching leaks. They’re looking at systemwide water and sewer upgrades vital to simply meet existing demand, not to mention potential population growth and previously unfathomed pressures of climate change.

In March 2022, Rawlins residents were under a boil order for nearly a week due to a “catastrophic” failure in the 100-plus-year-old wood-stave pipelines that deliver the majority of water to the municipal system from springs 30 miles south of town. 

In addition to the expense and task of gradually upgrading the wooden pipelines—nearly 2 miles have been replaced so far—the town also brought back online a long-derelict pre-water treatment plant so it can supplement its water supply by pumping from the North Platte River, as needed. Flow from the springs that provide Rawlins and Sinclair most of their water varies greatly, depending on seasonal snowpack, according to city officials. And those seasonal flows are only becoming more unpredictable.

All told, it will take nearly $60 million for necessary water system upgrades, according to Rawlins officials. They’ve already had some success landing grant dollars from state and federal sources, including ARPA dollars. But to secure those grants, and other funds in the form of loans, water users have been asked to pony up.

The average residential water utility bill has increased by about $30 per month since 2022, officials say. 

“Our rates were too low to support the maintenance and the work that we have to do on our lines,” Rawlins City Manager Tom Sarvey said. 

“A lot of these grants or loans require that you show community buy-in,” Rawlins spokesperson Mira Miller said. “So you can’t apply for these things if you can’t show that you are charging your customers a fair rate.”

Rawlins—because it’s been in emergency mode for the past two years—is confident about the security of its state-administered ARPA funding so far, according to officials. But many other towns with pressing water system improvement needs aren’t so sure.

Many small towns, even those that clearly qualify for federal grants, struggle to complete engineering and other required planning in the arduous process due to a basic lack of resources and expertise, Wyoming Association of Municipalities Member Services Manager Justin Schilling said.

“Municipal government, it’s a constant rotation of people, so they might not have been aware how urgent [completing grant requirements] was,” Schilling said. “So, we had a bunch of these small communities that got a lifeline tossed to them, but because of engineering delays, the state’s got to pull it back and slide it to shovel-ready projects so that it doesn’t just go back to the feds.”

State officials, in their August webinar with ARPA recipients in the state, fielded about a dozen questions from concerned community leaders.

“I know the process has been cumbersome,” State Loan and Investments Grants and Loans Manager Beth Blackwell told attendees, adding that state officials knew all along that the ARPA requirements were going to be a major challenge for many small, resource-strapped towns to meet. “My staff is working extremely hard, and it’s just, we’ve got to make sure that at the end of the day, the state’s not on the hook to paying these funds back.”

In Lingle, without the ARPA grant, there’s no alternative plan in the works to fund the wastewater system upgrades, Mayor Foster said.