Category: News

Russian drones hit several power sites near Odesa. The strikes damaged parts of the grid and sparked small fires that crews put out within hours. Local officials moved key buildings onto backup generators to keep water pumps and hospitals running. Ukraine’s air teams stopped many drones, but some still reached energy targets across the region. Engineers checked damaged lines through the morning and worked to keep the system stable. Odesa enters a colder period with a weaker grid. Each new strike makes the winter power supply harder to protect and raises pressure on repair crews already stretched thin.

The Justice Department said it found North Korean IT workers secretly hired by U.S. companies. These workers used stolen names and fake addresses to get jobs that looked completely normal on the surface. They logged in from overseas while posing as people who lived in American cities. Investigators say several helpers inside the United States made the scheme possible. These helpers set up bank accounts, handled company laptops, and kept the real locations of the workers hidden. Their actions let the workers blend into remote-job teams without raising alarms. The DOJ believes more than a hundred companies were pulled into the scheme. Many of them thought they were hiring ordinary remote staff for programming or tech support. Instead, the workers quietly sent their earnings back to North Korea. Federal agents recovered a large amount of money tied to the operation. Officials say the funds would have supported programs run by the North Korean government. The announcement puts remote-hiring practices back under the spotlight. The DOJ is urging companies to review identity checks and watch for strange login patterns, mismatched documents, or equipment routed through unexpected places.

Iran said that its nuclear sites are no longer enriching uranium. Officials explained that recent Israeli and U.S. strikes damaged key equipment across several facilities. The government described the stoppage as a direct result of the attacks, not a policy shift. Engineers on the ground are still assessing the broken systems. They shut down machines that were running at the time of the strikes. Workers also sealed several rooms where power lines, cooling units, and control panels were hit. Iran’s foreign minister said the country is now focused on restoring basic operations, like electricity and monitoring gear. He noted that inspectors can enter the sites, but they will see limited activity. Regional diplomats are watching closely. Some hope the pause could lower immediate nuclear tensions. Others worry Iran may rebuild quickly once repairs begin.

More workers are stacking several jobs at once to stay afloat. Many say their main salary no longer covers rent, food and basic bills. Some also worry about sudden layoffs, so they add extra work to feel safer. This shift shows up in simple ways. A person may work a full-time office job during the day, then spend evenings running a small online shop. Another may pick up weekend tutoring or late-night delivery shifts. These extra roles bring variety, but they also fill income gaps that one job no longer covers. People describe it as a mix of pressure and control. They feel stretched, but they also feel less exposed. If one job slows or disappears, another can help bridge the gap. Workers are relying less on a single employer and more on a patchwork of income streams. It offers stability for some, but it also leaves less time to rest. Still, for many, polyworking has become the most practical way to keep up in today’s economy.

A new national poll reveals that most Americans support the tax proposals of Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York City. The survey, conducted in early November, found that about 69% of adults endorse raising taxes on millionaires and corporations to help fund public services. Support for this measure spans political lines — roughly 40% of self-identified Republicans said they back it. Beyond the tax hikes, the poll also finds strong backing for other parts of Mamdani’s agenda: 66% support free childcare for children under five, 65% favor freezing rent for lower-income tenants, and 56% agree with increasing the minimum wage to $30 by 2030. The results suggest that the policy direction Mamdani ran on has appeal beyond just his New York base. With the mayor-elect set to take office in January, this level of national support gives him a stronger mandate as he prepares for governance.

Washington — The U.S. has quietly moved away from insisting that Hamas fully disarm before a major reconstruction push begins in the Gaza Strip. U.S. officials now say the disarmament issue will be delayed, allowing billions in reconstruction funds and humanitarian aid to flow more quickly. The shift comes after months of warnings from regional partners that enforcing an immediate disarmament for Hamas was unrealistic. Israeli leaders had made disarming Hamas a pre-condition for approving reconstruction efforts, but the U.S. now appears to be prioritizing rebuilding infrastructure and restoring civilian life. Under the changed posture, the United States is instead pushing for a phased approach: start reconstruction and stabilize Gaza first, then tackle the harder question of military control later. The move responds to mounting humanitarian urgency and pressure to show progress on the ground.

Anthropic, a ChatGPT competitor, announced this week that it disrupted a large-scale hacking campaign that it attributes to a Chinese state-sponsored group. The campaign, discovered in mid-September, used AI to automate much of the operation. According to the company, the attackers manipulated Claude’s “agentic” capabilities—getting the system to act autonomously rather than simply respond to commands—to break into nearly 30 global targets. The victims included technology firms, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers and government agencies. Anthropic said the hacking group used so-called “jailbreaking” techniques on Claude that allowed it to bypass internal safeguards. Once inside, the AI executed phishing, network infiltration and data extraction with limited human oversight. While the company detected and halted the campaign early, it views it as a watershed moment for cybersecurity. The idea that an AI system can run large parts of a cyber-espionage operation marks a sharp shift in how threats might evolve. This event raises urgent questions for every business that uses AI agents or cloud-based models. If one system can be bent into attack mode, many more could follow—and the automated scale of such threats could outpace traditional defenses.

President Trump’s much-publicised peace proposal for the Gaza Strip has hit a major hurdle as dozens of Hamas fighters remain trapped in tunnel networks inside southern Gaza. U.S. and Israeli officials are locked in disagreement over whether these militants should be granted safe-passage under the agreement. Mediators report the number of fighters ranges from about 100 to 200, located in a zone under Israeli control near the town of Rafah. Hamas leaders insist their fighters won’t surrender. Meanwhile Israeli authorities say permitting safe exit would be politically unacceptable. The stalemate has rippled into implementation plans. Trump’s 20-point roadmap calls for disarming Hamas, releasing hostages, and ending the war. But the trapped fighters issue now threatens to derail a key phase. Israel’s security concerns and Hamas’s refusal to disarm are core obstacles.

The federal government reopened after a 43-day shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. President Trump signed the funding bill late Wednesday, bringing most agencies back to work. The legislation covers operations through January and restores paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal employees who were unpaid during the impasse. Officials say most services, including benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will resume in the coming days. Some systems had paused or run at reduced levels during the shutdown. Agencies are now working to clear backlogs and resume full operations. For federal workers who went without pay, the back-pay provisions mean wages will arrive soon — though the exact timing depends on each agency’s payroll system. Travel services, application processing and other public-facing operations are expected to ramp up steadily. The shutdown had widespread effects: federal workers missed paychecks, food-aid programs were disrupted, and airports and national parks saw staffing issues. Now that funding is restored, those interruptions begin to ease.

The Russian government announced that it is ready to resume direct peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul. A senior Russian diplomat said Moscow has previously laid out proposals — including online working groups — and is willing to meet “at any moment.”Ukraine, however, has not responded positively to those initiatives so far. The talks between the two sides have been stalled since their last session in Istanbul in July.Turkey has reiterated that the Istanbul venue remains open and available for future discussions. Russia said the “ball is in Ukraine’s court.”Renewed dialogue could open pathways toward prisoner exchanges, humanitarian relief, or even an eventual cease-fire. The next move now depends on Kyiv.