An Amazon driver was told she would be fired if she stopped delivering packages during tornado warnings: report

An Amazon driver in Illinois was told by her supervisor on December 10 that she would lose her job if she stopped delivering packages, despite warnings of tornadoes in the area, according to a Bloomberg report.

The delivery driver told Bloomberg that her base was located in Edwardsville, Illinois — the same location where six Amazon employees died after a tornado struck a warehouse last week.

About 80 minutes before the tornado struck the warehouse, the driver sent a message — screenshots of which were viewed by Bloomberg — to the supervisor saying, "radios been going off."

The supervisor told her to "just keep driving," adding that "we can't just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to," according to the text messages cited by Bloomberg. A person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Bloomberg the authenticity of the messages between the driver and the supervisor.

When the driver sent another message to her supervisor, about 30 minutes later, saying she could hear tornado alarms, the supervisor replied to say the driver should continue with her deliveries, according to the texts reported by Bloomberg.

The supervisor then sent another message, telling the driver to "shelter in place for now, I just got word from Amazon," according to the texts seen by Bloomberg, before adding, "give it about 15-20 minutes and then continue as normal." 

The driver then told her supervisor in a subsequent message that she was going to return to base in Edwardsville for her own personal safety, adding that there was no place to shelter near her and the storm would be on top of her in 30 minutes, Bloomberg reported.

"If you decided to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning," the supervisor then wrote in the text to the driver,

 

Facebook exposes mercenary spy firms that targeted 50,000 people

 Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) is calling out half a dozen private surveillance companies for hacking or other abuses, accusing them in a report published Thursday of collectively targeting about 50,000 people across its platforms.

The company's fight with the spy firms comes amid a wider move by American tech companies, U.S. lawmakers and President Joe Biden's administration against purveyors of digital espionage services, notably the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, which was blacklisted earlier this month following weeks of revelations about how its technology was being deployed against civil society. Meta is already suing NSO in a U.S. court. Nathaniel Gleicher, Meta's head of security policy, told Reuters that Thursday's crackdown was meant to signal that "the surveillance-for-hire industry is much broader than one company."Meta's report said it was suspending roughly 1,500, mostly fake accounts run by seven organizations across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta said the entities targeted people in more than 100 countries. Meta did not provide a detailed explanation of how it identified the surveillance firms, but it operates some of the world's biggest social and communications networks and regularly touts its ability to find and remove malicious actors from its platforms.

Among them is Israel's Black Cube, which became notorious for deploying its spies on behalf of Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein. Meta said the intelligence firm was deploying phantom personas to chat its targets up online and gather their emails, "likely for later phishing attacks."Report ad

In a statement, Black Cube said it "does not undertake any phishing or hacking" and said the firm routinely ensured "all our agents' activities are fully compliant with local laws."

Others called out by Meta include BellTroX, an Indian cyber mercenary firm exposed by Reuters and the internet watchdog Citizen Lab last year, an Israeli company called Bluehawk CI, and a European firm named Cytrox - all of whom Meta accused of hacking. Cognyte (CGNT.O), which was spun off from security giant Verint Systems Inc (VRNT.O) in February, and Israeli firms Cobwebs Technologies were accused not of hacking but of using fake profiles to trick people into revealing private data.

Cognyte, Verint and Bluehawk did not immediately return messages seeking comment. In an email, Cobwebs spokesperson Meital Levi Tal said the company drew on open sources and that its products "are not intrusive by any means." Messages left with Ivo Malinovski – who until recently identified himself as Cytrox's chief executive on LinkedIn – received no immediate response. BellTroX founder Sumit Gupta has not returned Reuters reporters' messages since his firm was exposed last year. He had previously denied wrongdoing.

Gleicher refused to identify any of the targets by name but Citizen Lab, in a report published at the same time as Meta's, said that one of Cytrox's victims was Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour. Nour blamed the Egyptian government for the spying, telling Reuters in an interviewfrom Istanbul that he had long suspected he was under surveillance by officials there.

"For the first time I have evidence," he said. Egyptian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gleicher said other targets of the spy firms included celebrities, politicians, journalists, lawyers, executives and regular citizens. Friends and family of the targets were also swept up in the espionage campaigns, he said. Meta cybersecurity official David Agranovich said he hoped Thursday's announcement would "kickstart the disruption of the surveillance-for-hire market." There were some signs that other social media firms were taking similar action, with Twitter announcing the removal of 300 accounts a few hours after Meta's announcement.

Whether the takedowns deal the companies involved more than a temporary setback remains to be seen. Two of the companies, Black Cube and BellTroX, have bounced back after being embroiled in previous spy scandals. Gleicher said that targets of the spy firms would receive automated warnings, but he said Facebook would stop short of identifying the specific firms involved or their clients. That's despite the fact that Facebook said it had identified several customers of Cobwebs, Cognyte, Cytrox, and Black Cube - the latter of which includes law firms.

Marta Pardavi, one of several Hungarian human rights defenders who say they were targeted by Black Cube in 2017 and 2018, said she was gratified by the news of Facebook's report but wanted more information. "They name law firms," she said. "But law firms have clients. Who are the clients for these law firms?"

 

Early Image of Jesus Christ Discovered at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt

Spanish and French archaeologists excavating at the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchushave discovered what could be one of the earliest known images of Jesus Christ.

At the archaeological site, which is located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, the team led by Prof Josep Padro from the University of Barcelona unearthed an underground stone structure dating from between the 6th to 7th centuries CE.

The structure measures 8 m long and 3.75 m deep and holds what could be one of the earliest paintings of Jesus Christ. “An underground room dating from the 6th century CE holds an image of a young man with curly hair, dressed in a short tunic and with his hand raised as if giving a blessing,” Prof Padro explained.

He and his colleagues believe the image was painted by Coptic Christians.

Another stunning find at Oxyrhynchus is the tomb of a scribe.

“The archaeological site of Oxyrhynchus is known for the thousands of papyri found there, but any scribe was found to date,” Prof Padro said.

The archaeologists also found working tools of the scribe including an ink pot, which is still full of ink, and two pens.

There were no inscriptions referring to the identity of the scribe, but the remains show that he was 17 years old and lived during the Coptic Roman period.

YOUNG THUG ADMITS HE'S 'NEVER WRITTEN A LYRIC' - EVER

Young Thug is undoubtedly one of the trendsetters in Hip Hop. While some artists might opt to pick up a pen when it comes to their rhymes, Thugger explained to i-D magazine that he’s never written a lyric on paper in his life. “I’ve never written a lyric. Ever,” he said. “I really haven’t. I kind of just freestyle. I just go with it as it comes. I never really wrote anything down. I’m not patient enough to sit and write. It just takes a lot of my day.” The quote was prompted by a question asking about his favorite lyric he ever wrote. However, Thugger did reveal that he’d consider putting pen to paper when it comes to songwriting if he ends up in jail again.

Although, if he had to choose just one of his lyrics, the 30-year-old went with “Trying to kill these bastards like family don’t matter” off his 2017 Beautiful Thugger Girls song “Family Don’t Matter.”

 “Maybe because of how important family is to me,” Young Thug continued. “You know? That’s probably why it’s like fuck, like, you actually said it.”

“Only time I’ve had the time to write lyrics down is when I’ve been incarcerated,” he said. “Even if I just have to go to jail for a day or something. I don’t like writing and that’s the only way I can write; if I just got time on my hands and there’s nothing in the world I could do.”

Music producer 'Flow La Movie' among 9 killed in Dominican Republic private jet crash

Seven passengers and two crew members of a private passenger plane were killed in the crash at Las Americas Airport in Santo Domingo on Wednesday.

Nine people were killed on Wednesday after a private aircraft crashed while making an emergency landing in the Dominican Republic, according to the plane's operator, Helidosa Aviation Group.

Among the victims was Puerto Rican music producer Jose A. Hernandez, better known as "Flow La Movie," as well as his wife and their child, according to his publicist. 

Seven passengers and two crew members died in the incident at Las Americas Airport in the capital Santo Domingo, Helidosa Aviation Group said in a statement posted to Twitter. Six were foreign nationals and one was Dominican, it also said, without specifying the nationalities of the other six passengers.

Hernandez was mainly known for his hit song "Te Bote." 

His death sparked messages of condolences and commemoration from a number of Puerto Rican and other Latin artists, including superstar J Balvin and famed pop singer Ricardo Montaner.

The flight was en route to Florida from La Isabela International Airport in the Dominican Republic when it made the emergency landing and crashed just 15 minutes after takeoff, according to Flightradar 24.

"This accident causes us great pain and grief. We ask that you prudently join in solidarity to support the families affected, who along with us are going through this difficult time," the company's statement added.

 

The US Just Put $5 Million Bounties on 4 of El Chapo's Sons

Known collectively as Los Chapitos, the men are believed to control a prominent faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
JOAQUÍN “EL CHAPO” GUZMÁN LOERA’S SONS JESUS ALFREDO GUZMAN-SALAZAR (L), OVIDIO GUZMÁN LÓPEZ (C), AND IVÁN ARCHIVALDO GUZMÁN SALAZAR (R), EACH HAVE A 5$ MILLION BOUNTY ON THEIR HEADS, AS DOES A FOURTH - JOAQUÍN GUZMÁN LÓPEZ - NOT PICTURED. PHOTOS: DEA AND MEXICAN GOVERNMENT.

MEXICO CITY—The U.S. government just offered a $5 million reward to anyone with information that could lead to the capture of each of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera’s sons. 

Commonly known as Los Chapitos, the men are infamous for their brash and ostentatious behavior and displays on social media. One of them—Ovidio Guzmán López—was captured but released by the Mexican government in 2019 in an incident that proved a national embarrassment for the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The announcement from the Biden administration came on the heels of a similar bounty placed on the head of El Chapo’s brother, Aureliano Guzmán Loera aka Guano, and the tripling of the reward for his former Sinaloa Cartel partner Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada to $15 million.

World News

The US Just Put a $5 Million Bounty on El Chapo’s Brother

NATHANIEL JANOWITZ

11.08.21

After El Chapo’s arrest and extradition in 2017, his sons—Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, Ovidio Guzmán López, and Joaquín Guzmán López—are believed to have become prominent leaders of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. The fresh bounty on each of their heads puts the young Guzmáns in a tier with some of Mexico's other most wanted criminals.

“All four are high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel and are each subject to a federal indictment for their involvement in the illicit drug trade,” said the U.S. Department of State when announcing the reward.

The eldest brother, Iván Archivaldo, first made headlines in the early 2000s after the death of a Canadian exchange student in Guadalajara. Kristen Deyell left a nightclub with a man named César Pulido who had reportedly been involved in a fight inside the club over the Canadian student. The two were ambushed outside and shot to death. Iván Archivaldo was the prime suspect and spent the next few years in and out of prison battling charges over the murder, along with money laundering and organized crime allegations. He was eventually freed in 2008 and Deyell and Pulido's murders remain unsolved

Both Iván Archivaldo and his younger brother Jesús Alfredo started making waves for their use of social media, with unverified accounts linked to the brothers regularly posting photos and videos of guns, money, and women. But as the hunt for El Chapo increased during the mid-2010s, the sons tempered their social media use as they reportedly became more involved in the family business. The original accounts have been removed from Twitter.

El Chapo escaped prison in 2001, allegedly in a laundry cart, and ran the business while on the lam until finally being arrested in 2014. He escaped prison again in 2015, and was recaptured six months later. The kingpin was soon extradited to the U.S. and found guilty in 2019 in a New York court. El Chapo is currently serving a life sentence on drug, weapons, and money laundering charges at a Colorado supermax penitentiary.

 With El Chapo's January 2016 arrest and extradition on the horizon, the power vacuum began to cause conflict between different factions within the Sinaloa Cartel, and other cartels also tried to take advantage of the situation. The fighting directly hit the brothers when Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo were kidnapped in August 2016 by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG for its Spanish acronym). The brothers were released within a week after members of the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG reportedly brokered their release in exchange for guaranteeing the protection of the incarcerated son of Nemesio Oseguera, alias El Mencho, the boss of the CJNG.

World News

US Triples Bounty to $15M for Elusive Sinaloa Cartel Boss ‘El Mayo’ Zambada

NATHANIEL JANOWITZ

09.24.21

But Los Chapitos truly entered the public consciousness after the arrest of a third Guzmán brother, Ovidio, in October 2019. Mexican soldiers attempted to arrest Ovidio in a house in Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa and family stronghold, but were soon fought off by cartel gunmen. Ovidio's brothers reportedly sent hundreds of cartel foot soldiers onto the streets of the city who engaged in hours of gunfights with state forces that left at least eight people dead and many injured. Cartel gunmen also entered a military housing complex and threatened the families of Mexican soldiers stationed in Sinaloa.

Mexican President López Obrador promptly ordered the release of Ovidio to stop the bloodshed, but his capture and release was seen as a sign of the state's inability to combat organized crime.