Broncos vs Seahawks Game Online TV Coverage Info

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) – The FBI revealed on Thursday it had secretly hacked and disrupted a prolific ransomware gang called Hive, a maneuver that allowed the bureau to thwart the group from collecting more than $130 million in ransomware demands from more than 300 victims.

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said government hackers broke into Hive’s network and put the gang under surveillance, surreptitiously stealing the digital keys the group used to unlock victim organizations’ data.

They were then able to alert victims in advance so they could take steps to protect their systems before Hive demanded the payments.

“Using lawful means, we hacked the hackers,” Monaco told reporters. “We turned the tables on Hive.”

News of the takedown first leaked on Thursday morning when Hive’s website was replaced with a flashing message that said: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized this site as part of coordinated law enforcement action taken against Hive Ransomware.”

Hive’s servers were also seized by the German Federal Criminal Police and the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit.

“Intensive cooperation across national borders and continents, characterized by mutual trust, is the key to fighting serious cybercrime effectively,” said German police commissioner Udo Vogel in a statement from police and prosecutors in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, who assisted in the probe.

Reuters was not immediately able to locate contact details for Hive. It is unclear where they were geographically based.

The takedown of Hive is distinct from some of the other high-profile ransomware cases the U.S. Justice Department has announced in recent years, such as a cyber attack in 2021 against the Colonial Pipeline Co.

In that case, the Justice Department seized some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency ransom after the company had already paid the hackers.

Here, there were no seizures because investigators intervened before Hive demanded the payments. The undercover infiltration, which started in July 2022, went undetected by the gang until now.

OVER $100 MLN IN RANSOM

Hive was one the most prolific among a wide range of cybercriminal groups that extort international businesses by encrypting their data and demanding massive cryptocurrency payments in return.

The Justice Department said that over the years, Hive has targeted more than 1,500 victims in 80 different countries, and has collected more than $100 million in ransomware payments.

Although there were no arrests announced on Wednesday, one department official told reporters to “stay tuned.”

Canadian researcher Brett Callow, of cybersecurity company Emsisoft, said that Hive was responsible for at least 11 incidents involving U.S. government organizations, schools, and healthcare providers last year.

“Hive is one of the most active groups around, if not the most active,” he said in an email.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the FBI’s operation helped a wide range of victims, including a Texas school district.

“The bureau provided decryption keys to the school district, saving it from making a $5 million ransom payment,” he said. A Louisiana hospital, meanwhile, was spared $3 million.

Garland said the department’s investigation remains ongoing.

Reporting by Raphael Satter, Sarah N. Lynch and Katherine Jackson; additional reporting by Rachel More in Berlin; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Jan 25 (Reuters) – Donald Trump could learn soon whether he or any associates will be charged or cleared of wrongdoing in a Georgia probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, one of a series of legal threats looming over the Republican former U.S. president:

GEORGIA ELECTION TAMPERING PROBE

On Tuesday, the prosecutor in the state of Georgia spoke to a judge on behalf of a special grand jury empanelled in May to investigate Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and a Democrat who will ultimately decide whether to pursue charges against Trump or anyone else, said the grand jury had completed its task and decisions were “imminent.”

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.

U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK

The U.S. Justice Department has investigations under way into both Trump’s actions in the 2020 election and his retention of highly classified documents after departing the White House in 2021.

Both investigations involving Trump are being overseen by Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor and political independent. Trump has accused the FBI, without evidence, of launching the probes as political retribution.

A special House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol urged the Justice Department to charge Trump with corruption of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or aiding an insurrection.

The request is non-binding. Only the Justice Department can decide whether to charge Trump, who has called the Democratic-led panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.

MISSING GOVERNMENT RECORDS

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to investigate whether Trump improperly retained classified records at his Florida estate after he left office in 2021 and then tried to obstruct a federal investigation.

Garland also appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur for Maryland to investigate the removal of classified records in President Joe Biden’s possession dating to his time as vice president.

It is unlawful to willfully remove or retain classified material.

In Trump’s case, the FBI seized 11,000 documents from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate in a court-approved Aug. 8 search. About 100 documents were marked classified; some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.

Trump has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization business between 2011 and 2021.

A Democrat, James accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.

A New York judge ordered that an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial in October 2023.

James seeks to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.

James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.

Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

DEFAMATION CASE

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, has filed two lawsuits accusing Trump of having defamed her when he denied her allegation that he raped her in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996.

Trump accuses her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Carroll first sued Trump after he denied the accusation in June 2019 and told a reporter at the White House that he did not know Carroll, that “she’s not my type,” and that she concocted the claim to sell her new memoir.

The second lawsuit arose from an October 2022 social media post where Trump called the rape claim a “hoax,” “lie,” “con job” and “complete scam,” and said “this can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

That lawsuit includes a battery claim under the Adult Survivors Act, which starting last Nov. 24 gave adults a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have expired.

A U.S. judge on Jan. 13 rejected as “absurd” Trump’s effort to dismiss the second lawsuit.

Trump and Carroll are awaiting a decision from a Washington, D.C., appeals court on whether, under local law, Trump should be immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit over his June 2019 comments.

That lawsuit would likely be dismissed if the court decided that Trump spoke within his role as president, and continue if Trump spoke in his personal capacity as Carroll argues.

Any decision would have no effect on Carroll’s second defamation and battery lawsuit. A trial in the first lawsuit is scheduled for April 10.

NEW YORK CRIMINAL PROBE

Although Trump was not charged with wrongdoing, his real estate company was found guilty on Dec. 6 of tax fraud in New York state. A judge this month sentenced Trump’s namesake real estate company to pay a $1.6 million criminal penalty, the maximum the judge could impose.

Jurors convicted the Trump Organization, which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world, of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty and was required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of his plea agreement. He is also a defendant in James’ civil lawsuit.

Reporting by Joseph Ax, Luc Cohen, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

CNN
—

The murder trial of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is underway at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, a small town about 40 miles east of Charleston. The case goes back to June 2021, when Murdaugh’s wife and son were found shot to death at the family’s Islandton property, known as Moselle.

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime related to his wife and son’s deaths. Separate from the murder charges, he is also facing 99 charges stemming for alleged financial crimes.

Here are the key players in the murder trial:

Now disbarred, Murdaugh is a member of a prominent legal family in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Three generations of his family over 87 years have served as solicitor for the 14th Circuit, which oversaw prosecutions throughout the area. A portrait of his late grandfather, one of the solicitors, had hung on the wall of the courtroom; it was removed before trial. Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Alex Murdaugh’s wife, who was 52 when she was found fatally shot with the couple’s younger son at the family’s Moselle estate on June 7, 2021.

Alex Murdaugh’s 22-year-old son, who was found fatally shot with his mother at the family’s Moselle estate on June 7, 2021. At the time, he was facing charges of boating under the influence, causing great bodily harm and causing death in connection to a 2019 boat crash that claimed the life of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, court records show. He had pleaded not guilty, and the charges were dropped after his death.

South Carolina senior assistant deputy attorney general and lead prosecutor. He has been involved with the case since 2021. The state attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case because of the Murdaugh family’s close ties to the local solicitor’s office.

One of Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys, along with Jim Griffin. Harpootlian is a South Carolina state senator and attorney whose Columbia-based practice specializes in criminal defense.

One of Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys, along with Dick Harpootlian. A former federal prosecutor, he now works as a state and federal criminal defense attorney based in Columbia, South Carolina.

The South Carolina Circuit Court judge hearing the case. He has been on the bench since 2000. Newman has presided over various proceedings in the Murdaugh case since 2021.

A former client of Alex Murdaugh. Murdaugh told authorities he conspired with Smith to kill Murdaugh as part of an insurance fraud scheme, per court documents, purportedly so Murdaugh’s surviving son, Buster, could collect a $10 million life insurance payout. Smith admitted in 2021 to being present at the shooting and disposing of the firearm afterward, according to an affidavit.

Alex Murdaugh’s surviving son. He was in court for opening statements – the first time he has appeared at legal proceedings for his father – and is listed as a witness at trial. His father’s scheme for Smith to kill Murdaugh was “an attempt on his part to do something to protect his child (Buster),” Harpootlian, the attorney, said.

Alex Murdaugh’s younger brother. He is listed as a witness at trial and accompanied Buster Murdaugh to court this week.

The Murdaugh family’s longtime housekeeper who died in 2018 in what was described as a “trip and fall accident” at their home. Murdaugh is accused of misappropriating funds meant for Satterfield’s family as part of a wrongful death settlement.

An expert in bloodstain pattern analysis who analyzed the shirt worn by Alex Murdaugh on the night his wife and son were killed. In a motion filed just before the trial, the defense asked the court to prohibit Bevel from testifying.

Jan 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Wednesday it will reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.

The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.

His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has yet to post there.

Free speech advocates say it is appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderating policies.

Meta said in a blog post Wednesday it has “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”

“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” wrote Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, in the blog post.

The decision, while widely expected, drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”

The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Others said it was the right decision.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former ACLU official, defended the reinstatement. He had previously endorsed the company’s decision to suspend Trump’s account.

“The public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office,” said Jaffer. “It’s better if the major social media platforms err on the side of leaving speech up, even if the speech is offensive or false, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions.”

OTHER REACTIVATIONS?

The decision to ban Trump was a polarizing one for Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which prior to the Trump suspension had never blocked the account of a sitting head of state for violating its content rules.

The company indefinitely revoked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after removing two of his posts during the Capitol Hill violence, including a video in which he reiterated his false claim of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

It then referred the case to its independent oversight board, which ruled that the suspension was justified but its indeterminate nature was not. In response, Meta said it would revisit the suspension two years after it began.

Meta’s blog post Wednesday suggested it may reactivate other suspended accounts, including those penalized for their involvement in civil unrest. The company said those reinstated accounts would be subject to more stringent review and penalties for violations.

Whether, and how, Trump will seize upon the opportunity to return to Facebook and Instagram is unclear.

Trump has not sent any new tweets since regaining his account on Twitter, saying he would prefer to stick with his own app Truth Social. But his campaign spokesman told Fox News Digital last week that being back on Facebook “will be an important tool for the 2024 campaign to reach voters.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded to his reinstatement on Meta apps, saying: “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” He did not indicate if or when he would begin posting on Meta platforms again.

Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.

“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reporting by Greg Bensinger, David Shepardson, Kanishka Singh, Eva Mathews and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Kenneth Li and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

CNN
—

A series of shootings in three states has made for a heart-wrenching several days, leaving 24 dead as more cities join a growing list of American communities scarred by gun violence.

“Only in America do we see this kind of carnage, this kind of chaos, this kind of disruption of communities and lives and confidence and sense of safety and belonging,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday after his state suffered three mass shootings in about 44 hours.

Forty mass shootings have been recorded in the US so far in 2023 – more than at this point in any year on record, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Newsom was still visiting victims of Saturday night’s Monterey Park shooting that claimed 11 lives when he was told of a second shooting Monday afternoon in Half Moon Bay, which officials later described as an apparent “act of workplace violence” that left seven dead and one person injured.

“I feared two days ago that Monterey Park would give way to other headlines. Little did I know I’d be up here,” Newsom said, speaking from Half Moon Bay. “Meanwhile, the trauma and the damage the devastation is felt for generations in some cases – communities being torn asunder, no one feeling safe.”

The mayor of Monterey Park, still reeling from the attack in his city, gave his condolences to those grieving in Half Moon Bay. “I know what is in store for them in the next few days,” Mayor Henry Lo said.

Hours after the Half Moon Bay shooting, five people were shot, including an 18-year-old who died, Monday in Oakland, California.

Also on Monday, a man in Des Moines, Iowa, opened fire at a building that houses an educational program for at-risk youth, killing two students and leaving the program’s founder seriously injured, police said.

Then, early Tuesday, a man shot and killed three people at or near a Circle K convenience store in Yakima, Washington, police said.

Those are just some of the communities grieving following recent acts of gun violence, including mass shootings in which four or more people were shot, not including a gunman.

Here are the latest key developments:

• In Half Moon Baythe suspect was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former coworker and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013, court records obtained by CNN show. The 66-year-old, taken into custody Monday, has been charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. The murder counts all include enhancements for the use of a firearm, great bodily injury and multiple murders.

He is expected to enter a plea at a February 16 hearing.

• In Monterey Parkall 11 people killed were identified. They were all were in their late 50s to mid-70s.

• In Yakimathe suspect was found dead Tuesday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

• In Monksa shooting suspect was arrested and has been charged with murder.

Investigators and federal agents on the different cases are tracing firearms, serving search warrants, examining suspect histories and looking for motives.

Here are more details of some of the most recent major shootings.

The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office identified six of the victims killed as Yetao Bing, 43; Qizhong Cheng, 66; Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50; Aixiang Zhang, 74; Jingzhi Lu, 64; and Zhishen Liu, 73.

The seventh victim has been tentatively identified but the office withheld the name pending positive identification and the notification of the next of kin.

Four people were shot at a mushroom farm, where the suspect was an employee, and three more were killed at a nearby farm, authorities said.

“All of the evidence we have points to this being the instance of workplace violence,” San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said Tuesday, adding the victims were either Asian or Hispanic.

LIVE UPDATES: Latest on the Half Moon Bay shooting

The suspect – identified as Chunli Zhao – was a “coworker or former coworker” of the victims at each shooting site, the sheriff’s office said.

The suspect, who was not known to local law enforcement prior to the shooting, owned a semi-automatic weapon that was registered to him, the sheriff told CNN Tuesday.

The suspect had been accused of trying to suffocate and threatening to kill a former coworker at another job nearly a decade ago, according to court records obtained by CNN, which show he was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former coworker and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013.

All of the victims were of either Asian or Hispanic descent, Corpus said. At least two of the people killed were Mexican nationals, as is the wounded survivor, the Mexican consulate in San Francisco said.

Authorities still don’t know what motivated the Saturday night shooting at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, which came as the city’s majority Asian community was celebrating the Lunar New Year.

Investigators served a search warrant at the home of the suspected gunman – 72-year-old Huu Can Tran – and found “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition as well as evidence leading officials to believe he was “manufacturing homemade firearm suppressors,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.

The gunman fired 42 rounds from a semi-automatic handgun at the dance hall before heading to a second dance studio in nearby Alhambra, where a civilian charged him and wrestled the gun away from him, Luna said.

Eleven people died and several others were wounded.

The victims were identified by the coroner’s office as: Xiujuan Yu, 57; Hongying Jian, 62; Lilan Li, 63; Mymy Nhan, 65; Muoi Dai Ung, 67; and Diana Man Ling Tom, 70; ; Valentino Marcos Alvero, 68; Ming Wei Ma, 72; Yu-Lun Kao, 72; and Chia Ling Yau, 76.

Less than a day after the shooting, Tran was found dead inside a white van about 30 miles away in Torrance. He died following a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the sheriff said.

The suspect was familiar with the dance hall, but it’s unclear whether he knew any of those killed, authorities said.

In Yakima, a man walked into a Circle K early Tuesday and opened fire, killing two people inside, then walked out of the store and shot and killed a third person, Police Chief Matt Murray said.

Police were eventually pointed to the suspect’s location Tuesday after getting a call from a woman in Yakima who had lent the suspect her phone and heard him make “several incriminating statements including ‘I killed those people,’” Murray said during a news conference.

Police responded and later announced the suspect had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police earlier had identified the “presumed homicide suspect” as Jarid Haddock, 21.

The motive behind the shooting was being investigated, but Murray said the attack appeared “very much random.”

Up to 50 people were out filming a music video when “gunfire broke out from multiple shooters in various directions” on Monday evening in Oakland, the city’s acting police chief said.

Officers got an alert via gunshot detection technology and responded to find “some casings” but no victims. They later learned that gunshot victims showed up at several area hospitals, Acting Chief Darren Allison said.

Five people were shot, including an 18-year-old man who died. A driver and passengers were also injured when they crashed while fleeing the scene, Allison said.

It was a “targeted shooting,” and investigators are “looking into the possibility of a gang or group connection with this incident,” he said.

On Monday afternoon, police and fire personnel in Des Moines responded to a report of a shooting at an educational program for at-risk youth.

They found three shooting victims, who were taken to hospitals. Two students, ages 18 and 16, died, and the program’s founder was hospitalized in serious condition, authorities said.

A suspect, Preston Walls, 18, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and criminal gang participation, police said. CNN hasn’t been able to determine if he has a lawyer.

“There’s nothing random about this. It was certainly a targeted incident,” Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek said of the shooting. “But as far as getting motive, that is something that we are going to try and figure out.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Lilan Li’s first name.

CNN
—

The updated Covid-19 boosters are cutting the risk that a person will get sick from the coronavirus by about half, even against infections caused by the rapidly spreading XBB.1.5 subvariant.

New studies, conducted by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are among the first looks at how the bivalent boosters have continued to work in the real world as the virus has evolved. The data shows that the boosters are continuing to offer substantial protection against currently circulating variants.

The near-real-time data was collected by the federally funded Increased Community Access To Testing program, which administers Covid-19 tests through pharmacies. It includes results for adults receiving tests at participating pharmacies from December 1 to January 13.

Of nearly 30,000 test results included in the analysis, more than 13,000 (47%), were positive for Covid-19.

More people who tested negative had gotten an updated bivalent booster compared with those who tested positive.

On average, people in the study who had not gotten a bivalent booster also had not had a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in more than a year. That’s about the same as the national average, the study authors said. Their protection against illness was probably very minimal, they said.

The study results show that the updated boosters are most effective for younger adults.

For adults between the ages of 18 and 49, the boosters cut the odds of getting a symptomatic infection caused by the BA.5 subvariant by 52%, and it cut the odds of getting an infection caused by XBB or XBB.1.5 by 49%. For adults 50 to 64, the new boosters cut the odds of getting sick with Covid-19 by 43% for BA.5 and 40% for XBB subvariants. For those 65 and older, the boosters cut the odds of an infection with symptoms by 37% and 43% for the BA.5 and XBB subvariants, respectively.

Ruth Link-Gelles, a senior epidemiologist at the CDC and lead study author, said at a news briefing Wednesday that these vaccine effectiveness numbers are averages. Because everyone is unique in terms of their underlying health, their past exposure to the virus and other factors, these estimates of vaccine effectiveness may not apply on an individual level. She said it’s important to think of them on population level.

For people who are wondering whether the protection from the bivalent booster they got in September has worn off by now, it’s too early to know how waning would work with these new two-strain shots, Link-Gelles said.

So far, there’s little evidence of waning effectiveness two to three months after people got their shots.

“It’s too early, I think, to know how waning will happen with the bivalent vaccine. We know from the older vaccines that we do see protection decrease over time, especially against symptomatic infection. Just like with overall protection, what we’ve seen in the past is, your protection lasts longer for more severe illness,” Link-Gelles said.

Researchers don’t have data past three months, she said, but based on experience, she would expect protection against severe disease and death to be higher and last longer than these results against infections.

“We will continue to monitor it over time in the coming months,” she said.

The study authors said that these are just estimates of how well the vaccines are protecting people against an infection that brings on symptoms like cough or fever. They are probably working even better against more severe outcomes like hospitalization and death.

“What we know from past experience is generally that the vaccines protect better against more severe disease. So these are estimates for symptomatic infection and we would expect that similar estimates for hospitalization and death would be higher,” Link-Gelles said.

Asked how well the two-strain vaccines may be working compared with the older one-strain shots, Link-Gelles said it was impossible to know.

“We can’t in the US do a direct, head-to-head comparison of the monovalent and the bivalent vaccines because they were never authorized at the same time,” she said. Because protection wanes over time, you’d need to compare groups of people who got each kind of shot at the same time.

“What this tells us is that people that had the bivalent vaccine were better protected than people that were up to date previously, had all their monovalent doses and had not gotten the bivalent vaccine,” Link-Gelles said.

The CDC said it was able analyze the data and publish it so quickly thanks to the use of a shortcut. Rather than sequencing the genomes of each positive result, the researchers relied on a different marker to distinguish between variants.

The tests used in the study rely on a series of probes, or markers, to identify a positive case. Some variants of the virus that causes Covid-19 have mutations in their spike protein that causes one of the test markers to fail. This is called an S-gene target failure.

In the study, test results that showed an S-gene target failure were considered to be an infection caused by a BA.5 subvariant. Those that were S-gene target positive were considered to be caused by the XBB or XBB.1.5 sublineage.

As the study continued, XBB.1.5 became a bigger player in the variant mix.

“Later in the study period, most would be XBB.1.5,” said Heather Scobie, an epidemiologist at the CDC.

This gave the researchers confidence that the vaccine effectiveness results reflect how well the vaccines are working right now.

CNN
—

Germany is set to send its sought-after Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine to help bolster the country’s war effort, Der Spiegel reported on Tuesday evening, attributing to unnamed sources. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has decided to deliver the battle tanks following “months of debate,” according to the German news outlet’s exclusive report.

The German parliament is due to debate the contentious issue on Wednesday morning. Deciding to send them would be a landmark moment in the West’s support for Kyiv that follows days of intense pressure on Berlin from some of its NATO partners.

CNN reached out to the German government for comment on Tuesday evening but has not received a response.

The report comes shortly after United States officials revealed on Tuesday that the Biden administration is finalizing plans to send US-made tanks to Ukraine. Germany had indicated to the US last week that it would not send its Leopard tanks unless the US also agreed to send its own M1 Abrams tanks.

Sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine would provide Kyiv’s forces with a modern and powerful military vehicle ahead of a potential Russian spring offensive. It would also come as a blow to the Kremlin, which has seen a growing campaign to equip Ukrainian troops with high-tech fighting systems as Russia’s ground war nears the one-year mark.

Germany had resisted a growing drumbeat of Western pressure to ship some of the tanks to Ukraine, with new German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius repeatedly calling for more time and insisting that the move would come with pros and cons for Berlin.

Warsaw raised the stakes on Tuesday when it formally asked permission to send its own Leopards, a move Berlin had previously said it wouldn’t block.

Several European countries also own some Leopards, and Poland had led an effort to re-export those to Ukraine even if Germany was not on board. But the decision of Scholz and Pistorius was considered crucial because the tanks are German-made and Germany is usually in control of their export and re-export.

A Polish official told CNN Tuesday that to their knowledge, Berlin had not yet formally notified Warsaw about a decision to allow the Leopards to be sent to Ukraine.

The German army has 320 Leopard tanks in its possession but does not reveal how many would be battle ready, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense previously told CNN.

Several high-tech fighting systems have been pledged to Ukraine since the turn of the year amid a renewed wave of Western military aid. The US finalized a huge military aid package for Ukraine totaling approximately $2.5 billion worth of weaponry last week, including Stryker combat vehicles for the first time, while the United Kingdom and a number of EU countries have agreed to send tanks.

Pistorius, who became Germany’s defense minister on Thursday, saw his first days in the job dominated by the efforts of key allies to join that trend by shipping Leopards into Ukraine. Germany in turn looked to secure guarantees that the US would send its own tanks too.

But frustration from some leaders spilled into the open after a Berlin summit wrapped last Friday without a deal to send Leopards, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accusing Germany of “wasting time” by failing to come to a decision.

The Leopard 2 tank would be a powerful fighting vehicle for Ukraine’s battlegrounds.

Each tank contains a 120mm Smoothbore gun, and a 7.62mm machine gun; it can reach speeds of 70 km per hour (44 mph), or 50 kmph when off-road, making maneuverability one of its key features. And there is all-around protection from threats, including improvised explosive devices, mines or anti-tank fire, according to its German manufacturer, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded for countries to stop squabbling over whether to send the tanks.

“We have talked hundreds of times about the shortage of weapons. We cannot go only on motivation,” he said during a virtual appearance at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last week.

In an apparent swipe at Germany’s stalling, Zelensky added: “There are moments when there is no need to hesitate. When people say – I’ll give you tanks if someone else does.”

Russia had meanwhile sought to threaten Germany as it deliberated. Asked during a regular press briefing about Moscow’s reaction if Berlin approved sending tanks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the relations between the two countries “are already at a fairly low point,” adding there is currently “no substantive dialogue with Germany or with other EU and NATO countries.”

“Of course, such deliveries do not bode well for the future of relations. They will leave an imminent trace,” Peskov said.

Previous military aid, like the American HIMARS rocket system, has been vital in helping Ukraine make a series of successful counter-offensives in recent months.

BERLIN/KYIV, Jan 25 (Reuters) – The United States and Germany are poised to boost Ukraine’s war effort with the delivery of heavy tanks, sources said, support Russia condemned as a “blatant provocation”.

The expected tank deliveries come as Ukraine dismissed several senior officials as part of an anti-corruption drive, an issue that has become even more important given the need to keep Western backers onside.

Washington was expected to announce as soon as Wednesday that it will send M1 Abrams tanks and Berlin has decided to dispatch Leopard 2 tanks, the sources said.

While there was no official confirmation, officials in Kyiv hailed what they see as a possible gamechanger in a war that is now 11 months old – even if the rumoured tank numbers, in the dozens, would be short of the hundreds they say they need.

“A few hundred tanks for our tank crews …. This is what is going to become a real punching fist of democracy,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration, wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskiy, who turns 45 on Wednesday, again pressed Western allies to provide their most modern battle tanks, saying “the need is larger” in his nightly video address on Tuesday.

Germany and the United States have until now held back on providing heavy armour, wary of support that could give the Kremlin reason to widen the conflict.

Russia has warned that supplies of modern offensive weaponry to Ukraine would escalate the war, with some officials saying its allies were leading the world into a “global catastrophe”.

Deliveries of battle tanks by the United States would be a “another blatant provocation”, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s U.S. ambassador, said on Wednesday.

“It is obvious that Washington is purposefully trying to inflict a strategic defeat on us,” Antonov said in remarks published on the embassy’s Telegram messaging app.

“American tanks will be destroyed by our military in the same way all other samples of NATO equipment are being destroyed,” Antonov said.

Since invading Ukraine, Russia has shifted its rhetoric on the war from an operation to “denazify” and “demilitarise” its neighbour to casting it as a fight against the collective West.

Ukraine and its Western allies call Russia’s action an unprovoked act of aggression.

DOZENS OF TANKS

Front lines, stretching over 1,000 km (620 miles) through eastern and southern Ukraine, have been largely frozen for two months despite heavy losses on both sides. But both Russia and Ukraine are believed to be planning new offensives.

Zelenskiy said that Russia was intensifying its push toward Bakhmut, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine that has been the focus of intense fighting. “They want to increase the pressure,” he said.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a report that the West had “contributed to Ukraine’s inability to take advantage of having pinned Russian forces in Bakhmut by slow-rolling or withholding weapons systems”.

Ukraine has pleaded for months for Western tanks that it says it needs to give its forces the firepower and mobility to break through Russian defensive lines and recapture territory.

The question of whether to supply Ukraine with significant numbers of tanks has dominated debate among Western allies in recent days.

Germany has been pivotal because Leopards, fielded by some 20 armies around the world, are seen as the best option for Ukraine as they are available in large numbers and are easy to deploy and maintain.

Although the U.S. Abrams tank is considered less suitable, due to its fuel consumption and maintenance needs, a U.S. decision to send them to Ukraine could make it easier for Germany – which has called for a united front among Ukraine’s allies – to allow the supply of Leopards.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday that Washington was ready to start a process that would eventually send dozens of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had decided to send the Leopards and allow other countries such as Poland to do so as well, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Spiegel magazine said Germany was planning to supply at least one company of Leopard 2 A6 tanks, which usually comprises 14 tanks. Some other allies intend to go along with Germany in supplying their Leopards, it reported.

Separately, Ukraine dismissed more than a dozen senior officials in the biggest shake-up of its wartime leadership.

The European Union, which offered Ukraine the status of candidate member last June, welcomed the changes.

Among the officials who resigned or were dismissed were the governors of the Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the latter three front-line provinces. Kyiv and Sumy were major battlefields earlier in the war.

Some of the officials who left had been linked to corruption allegations.

Ukraine has a history of graft and shaky governance and is under pressure to show it can be a reliable steward of billions of dollars in Western aid.

Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Cynthia Osterman and Stephen Coates; Editing by Himani Sarkar

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