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grenada, mississippi — A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community's enduring division over how to commemorate the past. Grenada's first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city's plans to relocate the monument to other public land, a concrete slab behind a fire station about 5.6 kilometers from the square. But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments. The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem. The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging. A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 6.1-meter stone structure. "I'm glad to see it move to a different location," said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada's historic square. "This represents that something has changed." Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in a discussion about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck. "No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook," Whitfield said. Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been "quite a divisive figure" in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white. "I understand people had family ... fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family," Latham said. "But you've got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There's been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag." The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Representative Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate. "We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location," she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen. The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War. The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

Nairobi, Kenya — University students are developing technology that incorporates artificial intelligence to help reduce the maternal mortality rate in Kenya. Maternal mortality remains a key issue affecting women of reproductive age in Kenya. The Ministry of Health says more than 6,000 women die each year due to poor access to maternal health facilities. The new technology allows health care workers to remotely monitor the conditions of pregnant women and their fetuses without physical visits to a hospital. David Saruni, a computer science student at Kabarak University in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, is involved in developing the application, known as Mama’s Hub. “The project objective is to prevent the onset of pre-eclampsia, which may cause death to mothers and even infants after their delivery,” Saruni said. “So, this project is going to save lives.” The World Health Organization defines maternal health as the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. Despite a global decline in maternal mortality ratio over the past two decades, the WHO says the African region still lags. Africa accounts for more than two-thirds of maternal deaths worldwide. With the Mama’s Hub application, the expectant mother wears a smartwatch that monitors vital signs such as blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. The monitor is connected to a mobile phone that relays the information to a database. Health care workers at Mama’s Hub can review that information and refer women to nearby doctors if they are concerned. Artificial intelligence enters the picture here, as patients will also be able to obtain prescriptions through a chatbot, which is now in the testing stages. Moses Thiga, principal investigator of the Mama’s Hub project, said, “If the onset of the condition is detected before 20 weeks, then there are interventions that can be instituted. The same case with others like gestation or diabetes. “All this boils down to timely and accurate information about the mother.” The National Research Fund-supported technology also enables digitization of the prenatal care records of patients for easier access. It has been tested in prenatal clinics in the Rift Valley city of Nakuru, with the aim of rolling out to the rest of the country. Nakuru County chief nursing officer Wendy Tirop said the digitization has improved record tracing. "It makes it very [easy] for the health care provider to be able to trace and identify mothers who have failed to come to the clinic and do a follow-up,” Tirop said.

Washington — The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates helped tame inflation but that also made borrowing painfully expensive for American consumers. The rate cut, the Fed's first in more than four years, reflects its new focus on bolstering the job market, which has shown clear signs of slowing. Coming just weeks before the presidential election, the Fed's move also has the potential to scramble the economic landscape just as Americans prepare to vote. The central bank's action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%, where it had stood for 14 months as it struggled to curb the worst inflation streak in four decades. Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in mid-2022 to a three-year low of 2.5% in August, not far above the Fed's 2% target. The Fed's policymakers also signaled that they expect to cut their key rate by an additional half-point in their final two meetings this year, in November and December. And they envision four more rate cuts in 2025 and two in 2026. In a statement, the Fed came closer than it has before to declaring victory over inflation: It said it "has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%." Though the central bank now believes inflation is largely defeated, many Americans remain upset with still-high prices for groceries, gas, rent and other necessities. Former President Donald Trump blames the Biden-Harris administration for sparking an inflationary surge. Vice President Kamala Harris, in turn, has charged that Trump's promise to slap tariffs on all imports would raise prices for consumers even further. Rate cuts by the Fed should, over time, lower borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, boosting Americans' finances and supporting more spending and growth. Homeowners will be able to refinance mortgages at lower rates, saving on monthly payments, and even shift credit card debt to lower-cost personal loans or home equity lines. Businesses may also borrow and invest more. Average mortgage rates have already dropped to an 18-month low of 6.2%, according to Freddie Mac, spurring a jump in demand for refinancings. The Fed's next policy meeting is Nov. 6-7 — immediately after the presidential election. By cutting rates this week, soon before the election, the Fed is risking attacks from Trump, who has argued that lowering rates now amounts to political interference. Yet Politico has reported that even some key Senate Republicans who were interviewed have expressed support for a Fed rate cut this week. The central bank's officials fought against high inflation by raising their key rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Wage growth has since slowed, removing a potential source of inflationary pressure. And oil and gas prices are falling, a sign that inflation should continue to cool in the months ahead. Consumers are also pushing back against high prices, forcing such companies as Target and McDonald's to dangle deals and discounts. Yet after several years of strong job growth, employers have slowed hiring, and the unemployment rate has risen nearly a full percentage point from its half-century low in April 2023 to a still-low 4.2%. Once unemployment rises that much, it tends to keep climbing. Fed officials and many economists note, though, that the rise in unemployment this time largely reflects an influx of people seeking jobs — notably new immigrants and recent college graduates — rather than layoffs. At issue in the Fed's deliberations is how fast it wants to lower its benchmark rate to a point where it's no longer acting as a brake on the economy — nor as an accelerant. Where that so-called "neutral" level falls isn't clear, though many analysts peg it at 3% to 3.5%.

Growing concerns of a regional conflict as the Middle East reels from an attack Tuesday when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and parts of Syria. What we know and don’t know about the planning of what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote operation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Egypt says the U.S. was unaware of the pager attack. Ukrainian drone strikes hit a major weapons arsenal warehouse in Russia. The U.S. says massive wildfires and flooding across Europe Massive wildfires and flooding in Europe are proof of “climate breakdown.” And what human rights investigators are revealing in the aftermath of Venezuela’s disputed election.

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New York — Lawyers for Sean "Diddy" Combs asked a judge Wednesday to let him await his sex trafficking trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, rather than a grim federal jail in Brooklyn.  Combs' lawyers offered a $50 million bail package — using his mansion as collateral — in exchange for releasing him to home detention with GPS monitoring. A hearing on the request was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate judge in Manhattan ordered Combs held without bail.  The hip-hop mogul whose career blossomed in the 1990s was arrested on Monday on charges contained in an indictment that accuses Combs of using his "power and prestige" for "sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice."  It describes the inducement of female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed "Freak Offs" that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded. The events would sometimes last days and require IVs to recover from, the indictment said.  It alleges he coerced and abused women for years while using blackmail, including the videos he shot, and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in line, coordinated and facilitated from the top down by a network of associates and employees.  Combs' attorney Marc Agnifilo submitted a letter to Judge Andrew L. Carter on Wednesday seeking the release of Combs, 54, on conditions including home detention with GPS monitoring, along with a restriction on all visitors to his residences except for family, property caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators.  Combs' house is on Star Island, a man-made dollop of land in Biscayne Bay, reachable only by a causeway or boat. It is among the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs' request echoes that of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to pay multimillion-dollar bails in exchange for home detention in luxurious surroundings.  "Sean Combs has never evaded, avoided, eluded or run from a challenge in his life," the defense said in a court filing. "He will not start now."  Combs was expected to reenter his not guilty plea in his initial appearance before Carter.  So far, prosecutors have successfully argued that he is a danger to the community and a flight risk and should remain incarcerated until trial.  For all the revelations that came with the unsealing of the indictment Tuesday, most of what it outlines had been described in a November lawsuit filed by his former longtime girlfriend and protege, the R&B singer Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura. The suit was settled the following day, but its allegations have followed Combs since.  Its descriptions of beatings, sexual assaults, silencing tactics and "Freak Offs" were echoed throughout the criminal indictment, though it did not use her name or the names of any other women.  Agnifilo, also without naming Ventura but clearly referring to her, argued at Tuesday's arraignment that the entire criminal case is an outgrowth of one long-term, troubled-but-consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity.  The "Freak Offs," Agnifilo contended, were an expansion of that relationship, and not coercive.  "Is it sex trafficking?" Agnifilo asked. "Not if everybody wants to be there."  Prosecutors, however, portrayed the scope as far larger. They said in court papers that they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow.  Like many aging hip-hop figures — including many of those he beefed with in the bicoastal rap feuds of the 1990s alongside the Notorious B.I.G. — the Bad Boy Records founder Combs had established a gentler, more worldly public image. The doting father of seven children was a respected international businessman, whose annual "White Party" in the Hamptons was once a must-have invitation for the jet-setting elite.  But prosecutors said he used the same companies, people and methods he used to build his business and cultural power to facilitate his crimes. They said they would prove it with financial, travel and billing records, electronic data and communications and videos of the "Freak Offs" to prove their case.  The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.  Combs was arrested late Monday in a Manhattan hotel, roughly six months after federal authorities raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami and revealed they were conducting a sex trafficking investigation.  During the searches, law enforcement seized narcotics, videos of the "Freak Offs" and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.  The indictment portrays Combs as so violent that he caused injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and associates sometimes witnessed his violence and kept victims from leaving or tracked down those who tried, the indictment said.  A conviction on every charge in the indictment would require a mandatory 15 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.  Combs and his attorneys denied similar allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits filed after Ventura's. 

Lebanese media report that at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in a second wave of explosions targeting the militant group Hezbollah. More electronic communications devices detonated Wednesday after exploding pagers killed at least 12 people and wounded almost 3,000 on Tuesday. Hezbollah has vowed revenge. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.

New York — Law enforcement officials on Long Island worked quickly on Wednesday to publicly knock down social media posts falsely reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump's planned rally in New York. The false reports of an explosive began circulating hours before the Republican presidential nominee's campaign event at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just days after he was apparently the target of a second possible assassination attempt. Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police questioned and detained a person who "may have been training a bomb detection dog," near the site of the rally and "falsely reported explosives being found." Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesperson for the county police, said in follow-up messages that the person, who police have not yet identified, was a civilian and not a member of a law enforcement agency. He also said the person was not working at or affiliated with the event, which is expected to draw thousands of Trump supporters to the arena that was formerly the home of the NHL's New York Islanders. The rally is Trump's first on Long Island, a suburban area just east of New York City, since 2017. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by a roughly 4% margin on Long Island, besting him in Nassau County by about 60,000 votes, though Trump carried neighboring Suffolk County by more than 200 votes. Earlier Wednesday, Skrynecki and other county officials responded swiftly to knock down the online line claims, which appear to have started with a post from a reporter citing unnamed sources in the local police department. The claims were then shared widely on X, formerly Twitter, by a number of prominent accounts, including that of the company's owner, Elon Musk, which has nearly 200 million followers. Spokespersons for X didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. "False," Skrynecki texted the AP as the claims spread. "No. Ridiculous. Zero validity," said Christopher Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

The three candidates vying to become the next secretary-general of the Commonwealth have all given strong backing for Britain and other European powers to pay reparations to their former colonies for past atrocities, including the transatlantic slave trade. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.

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Taipei, Taiwan — A recent attempt by a Chinese man to illegally enter Taiwan after crossing the 180-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait in a rubber boat is raising concerns on the island about its coastal defense capabilities and overall preparedness amid rising tensions between Beijing and Taipei.  Last Saturday, a 30-year-old Chinese man surnamed Wang was spotted in a dinghy about 100 meters offshore near Taiwan’s northern Linkou District in New Taipei City at about 6:30 in the morning.  After being treated for severe dehydration at a nearby hospital, Wang was detained by local authorities for illegally entering Taiwan. Wang told authorities that he was in debt in China and wanted to start a new life in Taiwan. Wang is one of 18 Chinese nationals who have tried to illegally enter Taiwan since July of last year. When reached for comment on the cases, Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration declined to share how many of them were able to reach Taiwan’s shores, like Wang.  In June, a former Chinese naval captain was able to reach the Tamsui ferry pier in Northern Taiwan on a speedboat, shocking many because of how far he was able to get before being detected. At the time, a Chinese man surnamed Ruan said he was fleeing to Taiwan seeking freedom after being threatened by Chinese police for sharing articles critical of the Chinese government. On Wednesday, however, a court in Taipei sentenced Ruan to eight months in prison for illegally entering Taiwan. He confessed to the crime but claimed his deep knowledge of the Chinese military could help Taiwan cope with threats posed by Beijing. Some experts say the two Chinese men’s attempts to illegally enter Taiwan expose loopholes in Taiwan’s coastal defense capabilities.  “Even though Taiwan’s defense ministry has highlighted the strategic importance of defending coastal areas in northern Taiwan, Taiwan’s coast guard, which is in charge of coastal defense, has not prioritized setting up advanced surveillance technologies, such as infrared thermal cameras, in these areas, which lead to their failure of detecting the two Chinese men before they reach Taiwanese shores,” said Chieh Chung, a military researcher at the National Policy Foundation in Taiwan.  Some lawmakers from Taiwan’s main opposition party Kuomintang, who favor friendly relations with China, say the two incidents show the Taiwanese government has failed to provide the coast guard with adequate funding and the right equipment to monitor attempted illegal entry. In response to opposition lawmakers’ criticism of underfunding the coast guard, Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai vowed to accelerate the review of the recent incidents and determine whether the coast guard needs more advanced technologies or personnel to support their work. Apart from accelerating the installation of advanced surveillance technologies along coastal areas in northern Taiwan, Chieh said Taiwan’s coast guard should consider strengthening coastal patrols by purchasing commercial drones and increasing coordination with Taiwanese fishermen.  “Taiwan’s coast guard can use commercial drones to help conduct patrols along coastal areas during the day and Taiwanese fishermen could immediately inform the coast guard if they spot any unusual vessels in waters near Taiwanese shores,” he told VOA in a phone interview.  Growing gray zone challenges  Intrusions into Taiwanese waters by Chinese coast guard vessels also are posing a problem for Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration and raising questions about preparedness. This is particularly true in waters off Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen and Matsu islands, which are just a few kilometers from China’s coast.  Late last week, Taiwan said four Chinese coast guard vessels entered restricted waters near Kinmen, prompting Taipei to deploy four coast guard vessels to drive away the Chinese vessels. The incident was the 39th incursion carried out by Chinese coast guard vessels this year, officials said. While Beijing describes the incursions, which include boarding Taiwanese vessels, as being part of “law enforcement patrols,” analysts in Taiwan say they challenge Taipei’s territorial claims around its outlying islands and are unilaterally seeking to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Chieh said since the Taiwanese government has focused on enhancing wartime coordination between the coast guard and the navy over the last few years, it has overlooked the need to strengthen the Taiwanese coast guard’s maritime law enforcement capabilities and upgrade its vessels and training.     “Some of the coast guard vessels that Taiwan purchased in previous years are not suitable to engage in close-range encounters with Chinese coast guard vessels because the structure of those vessels is not solid enough,” he told VOA.     Some analysts suggest Taiwan should carry out a series of reforms to rapidly enhance the coast guard’s capabilities.     “The Taiwanese government should enhance the coast guard’s budget, increase their manpower, and strengthen their law enforcement capabilities by arranging exchanges with other countries’ coast guard,” Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told VOA by phone.     Military analysts say China likely will maintain high-level pressure on Taiwan through repeated coast guard incursions in the coming months, and Taipei should ensure its coast guard has enough support to cope with the wide range of challenges that Beijing poses.     “Instead of letting the coast guard oversee both Taiwan’s maritime defense and coastal defense, the Taiwanese government should consider assigning some of the responsibilities to the army or the navy,” Lin Ying-yu, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone. 

New York — Boeing said Wednesday it would start temporary furloughs of professional and white-collar staff as it seeks to conserve cash amid a labor strike that has shuttered Seattle manufacturing plants. The furloughs, which pertain to executives, managers and workers, will be initiated in the coming days and affect tens of thousands of Boeing employees, company officials said. Boeing plans for "selected employees to take one week of furlough every four weeks on a rolling basis for the duration of the strike," said a message to employees from CEO Kelly Ortberg. The new Boeing boss added that he and the rest of the leadership team "will take a commensurate pay reduction for the duration of the strike." Boeing had said that furloughs were on the table earlier in the week when it announced a hiring freeze, travel budget austerity measures and a reduction of supplier expenditures. About 33,000 Seattle-area Boeing workers with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 walked off the job Friday after overwhelmingly rejecting a contract renewal. The two sides resumed talks Tuesday with the assistance of mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The IAM blasted Boeing in a bargaining update posted late Tuesday. "We are frustrated," the IAM said. "The company was not prepared and was unwilling to address the issues you've made clear are essential for ending this strike: Wages and Pension. The company doesn't seem to be taking mediation seriously." Ortberg's message to employees reiterated his commitment to "resetting our relationship with our represented employees and continuing discussions with the union to reach a new agreement that is good for all of our teammates and our company as soon as possible."

Every four years, the U.S. presidential race zeroes in on "swing states." These battlegrounds, unlike most states that consistently favor one party, can flip between elections and often determine who wins the White House. With just a few states typically in play, campaigns pour resources into these crucial arenas. Their electoral votes frequently decide the outcome, making them the focus of intense campaigning. Understanding swing states is essential to grasping how America picks its president, shaping strategies and potentially altering the nation's political landscape.

Washington — The U.S., Canada and Australia hit a group of Iranian officials with sanctions Wednesday for their participation in suppressing protests and detaining people in relation to the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died in the custody of Iran's morality police two years ago for improperly wearing a mandatory headscarf. Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16, 2022, in a hospital after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of the authorities. Her death sparked nationwide protests against the country's hijab laws and its ruling theocracy. Included in Wednesday's sanctions are a dozen officials accused of killing and detaining protesters, suppressing protests in 2019 and 2022 and arresting journalists. The country's new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on a promise to halt the harassment of women by morality police. Still, since Amini's death, videos have emerged of women and girls being roughed up by officers. In 2023, a teenage Iranian girl was injured in a mysterious incident on Tehran's Metro while not wearing a headscarf and later died in the hospital. In July, activists say police opened fire on a woman fleeing a checkpoint in an attempt to avoid her car being impounded for her not wearing the hijab. U.S. Treasury official Bradley T. Smith said, "Despite the Iranian people's peaceful calls for reform, Iran's leaders have doubled down on the regime's well-worn tactics of violence and coercion." The U.S. and its allies "will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime's cruel agenda," Smith said. The sanctions, which block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with the U.S. are largely symbolic since many of the individuals do not interact with the U.S. In March, a United Nations fact-finding mission determined that Iran is responsible for the "physical violence" that led to the death of Amini. It also found that the Islamic Republic employed "unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force" to put down the demonstrations that erupted following Amini's death and that Iranian security forces sexually assaulted detainees. Increasingly, on the streets of Iranian cities, it's becoming more common to see a woman passing by without a mandatory headscarf.

A group of young activists in Turkey known as 1000 Youth for Palestine is posing a rare and potent challenge to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by using social media to expose Turkey's ongoing trade with Israel. This, despite Erdogan's public claims that he has imposed a strict trade embargo on Israel over the war in Gaza. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the group's message is crossing the deep political, social and religious divides of Turkey.

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Washington — The United States has identified and taken down a botnet campaign by China-directed hackers to further infiltrate American infrastructure as well as a variety of internet-connected devices. FBI Director Christopher Wray announced the disruption of what he called Flax Typhoon during a cyber summit Wednesday in Washington, describing it as part of a much larger campaign by Beijing. “Flax Typhoon hijacked Internet-of-Things devices like cameras, video recorders and storage devices — things typically found across both big and small organizations,” Wray said. “And about half of those hijacked devices were located here in the U.S.” Wray said the hackers, working under the guise of an information security company called the Integrity Technology Group, collected information from corporations, media organizations, universities and government agencies. “They used internet-connected devices — this time, hundreds of thousands of them — to create a botnet that helped them compromise systems and exfiltrate confidential data,” he said. But Flax Typhoon’s operations were disrupted last week when the FBI, working with allies and under court orders, took control of the botnet and pursued the hackers when they tried to switch to a backup system. “We think the bad guys finally realized that it was the FBI and our partners that they were up against,” Wray said. “And with that realization, they essentially burned down their new infrastructure and abandoned their botnet.” Wray said Flax Typhoon appeared to build on the exploits and tactics of another China-linked hacking group, known as Volt Typhoon, which was identified by Microsoft in May of last year. Volt Typhoon used office network equipment, including routers, firewalls and VPN hardware, to infiltrate and disrupt communications infrastructure in Guam, home to key U.S. military facilities. The Chinese Embassy in Washington Wednesday rejected the U.S accusations. "Without valid evidence, the U.S. jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations" Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email, responding to the allegations about Flax Typhoon. "The U.S. itself is the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks," Liu added. "We urge the U.S. to stop its worldwide cyber espionage and cyberattacks, and stop smearing other countries under the excuse of cyber security." The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have previously warned that Chinese-government directed hackers, like Volt Typhoon, have been positioning themselves to launch destructive cyberattacks that could jeopardize the physical safety of Americans. Following Wednesday’s announcement by the FBI, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) issued an advisory encouraging anyone with a device that was compromised by Flax Typhoon to apply needed patches. It said that as of this past June, the Flax Typhoon botnet was making use of more than 260,000 devices in North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast East. The NSA said almost half of the compromised devices were in the U.S. Another 18 countries, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Albania, China, South Africa and India, were also impacted.  

AVIGNON, France — Gisele Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by dozens of men recruited by her husband, said on Wednesday "forgiveness does not exist," rejecting claims by him and one of his chief accomplices that they regretted harming the women they loved. The trial in the southern French town of Avignon of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men accused of raping his wife has shocked the world. The case has also triggered protests across France in support of Gisele Pelicot, who has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence. "These men are degenerates. They committed rape," Gisele Pelicot, 72, told the court after her now ex-husband Dominique and the accomplice, Jean-Pierre Marechal, gave testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. "When they see a woman sleeping on her bed, no one thought to ask themselves a question? They don't have brains?" Dominique Pelicot, 71, is also accused of having raped Marechal's wife at her home after drugging her, with the collaboration of her husband. Gisele Pelicot insisted on a public trial to expose her former husband and the 50 men he is accused of inviting to rape her in a small village in southern France. "Today forgiveness does not exist," Gisele Pelicot told the court as she described how her former husband had taken mistresses without hiding the fact from her, and she defended herself from some of the criticisms leveled against her. "I have felt humiliated while I've been in this courtroom. I have been called an alcoholic, a conspirator of Mr. Pelicot," she said, adding her life had been "destroyed" for 10 years. "In the state I was in, I absolutely could not respond. I was in a comatose state; the videos show that." The Pelicots' daughter Caroline, whose photographs were found on her father's devices along with images of her mother being raped, was on the verge of tears in the courtroom as her mother spoke. Dominique Pelicot has denied drugging or sexually abusing Caroline. She has told French media that she started publicly campaigning to fight drug-induced sexual assault to cope with the shock following her father's arrest. In court, Dominique Pelicot admitted orchestrating the mass rape of his then-wife. He asked for forgiveness and said he ultimately hoped to win back his former partner, who filed for divorce after learning of the rapes from investigators. Because of a skirmish between some supporters of Gisele Pelicot and some of the accused on Tuesday evening, the court told attendees not to boo the suspects in the case, telling them they were innocent until proven guilty. But the court also said it was not a problem if supporters applauded Gisele Pelicot when she emerged from the courtroom, as some have been doing. Earlier on Wednesday, Marechal, 63, admitted to working with Dominique Pelicot to drug and both rape Marechal's wife, Cilia, after the men met on a now-shuttered website. Marechal blamed his mentor and a troubled childhood for his actions. Marechal is not among those accused of raping Gisele Pelicot. "I regret my actions. I love my wife," Marechal said in the courtroom. "If I had not met Mr. Pelicot, I would have never committed this act." Marechal met Dominique Pelicot on a website called Coco, where Pelicot shared with him images of the rapes of his wife by the men he had recruited, describing how he had drugged her. Marechal said in the courtroom he stumbled across the website by accident and initially refused Pelicot's request to rape his own wife before acquiescing. Prosecutors say Pelicot drugged Marechal's wife and raped her while Marechal watched. Gisele Pelicot said Marechal's explanation of his childhood was insufficient to explain his actions. "I've had trauma but I have not committed crimes," she said. Dominique Pelicot acknowledged his guilt in raping Marechal's wife and said he regretted his actions, adding that he cut contact with them after she woke up while he was in her room. Prosecutors say Dominique Pelicot was recorded in at least three of 12 assaults against Marechal's wife Cilia.