Feds

Federal prosecutors are pushing back against NBA YoungBoy‘s request to relax the rules of his Utah house arrest due to his “deteriorating” mental health and declining sales of his music. In a new court filing Monday, prosecutors said the rapper’s motion to make outside studio visits and “certain” life-enrichment activities approvable by his pretrial officer is “hopelessly vague” and should be denied by the judge overseeing his pending Louisiana gun case. “The United States fails to see how the defendant’s current…

Sen. Mike Lee perpetuated an unfounded conspiracy theory that federal agents or informants were among the rioters on Jan. 6 and that one may have flashed a law enforcement badge during the attack (in reality, it was a vape). In two posts to X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, the Republican indulged in a MAGA disinformation campaign. Lee quoted a post from former Jan. 6 committee member Liz Cheney that contained footage of the Capitol attack, writing, “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made…

Too Long; Didn't ReadThe US Federal Reserve remarked in a press release this week its intention to raise the interest rate benchmark by 25 basis points, resulting in a new target range of between 5.25% and 5.5%. Bitcoin’s 7-day average trading volume hit a 30-month low last week, plunging to levels that were previously witnessed before BTC broke $20K back in December 2020. Clearly, market participants remain largely inactive. Sam Altman's recently launched World Coin has received mixed reactions, with some praising the…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Even after inflation has steadily eased this year, the Federal Reserve’s policymakers still think prices are rising too fast and are almost certain to lift their key interest rate by a quarter-point on Wednesday. A rate increase, the 11th in 17 months, would raise the Fed’s short-term rate to roughly 5.3%, the highest level since 2001. As with its previous rate hikes, Wednesday’s increase would likely further elevate the costs of mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business borrowing. Another hike is…

The Republican-led US House of Representatives Oversight Committee on Monday asked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to hand over confidential documents related to the central bank's supervision of failed Silicon Valley Bank.Committee chair James Comer, in a letter to Powell published on the panel's website, also asked for documents related to Fed Vice Chair Michael Barr's investigation into the supervisory and regulatory failures that contributed to SVB's collapse in March, which triggered weeks of turmoil in the US…

A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump held firm this week by declining a request to delay a controversial order barring government agencies from making content moderation requests to social media companies. The Justice Department is already appealing the decision, according to court filings, and said in a statement it would seek an emergency action from the Supreme Court if its appeal is rejected.Twitter Verification is a Hot MessJudge Terry A. Doughty defended his ruling Mondayagainst critiques who claimed its…

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon is the latest turn in a long motion picture tradition of pilfering FBI case files for screen scenarios. Originally, Hollywood coveted the validation of the bureau (“based on actual FBI case histories!”) and the personal imprimatur of its lord high ruler, J. Edgar Hoover (who in 1945 actually read life insurance commercials for NBC radio’s This Is Your FBI). Today, it often takes cues without the official stamp of the FBI shield. Either…

A former restaurant owner in Jefferson Park has been accused by his one-time landlord of defrauding the federal government out of $243,000 in pandemic aid. Sarto’s was a highly regarded Italian restaurant at 2900 W. 25th Ave. from 2014 until its closure in October 2020. It was founded by Taylor Swallow, who had been a real estate consultant and lender before leaving the corporate world and opening the restaurant. Federal records show that in March 2021, five months after it closed, Sarto’s received a $243,297 loan through…

Three months after arresting its administrator, U.S. federal authorities have seized the domain of notorious hacking site BreachForums. For a time, the forum was the go-to community for English-speaking cybercriminals, who would share, advertise and sell personal data stolen from a variety of websites and companies. In March, the FBI arrested Conor Brian Fitzpatrick in New York, accusing him of being the man behind the nickname “Pompompurin,” the administrator of BreachForums. Shortly after, the site’s new…

The Justice Department has arrested and charged a Russian national for his alleged role in multiple LockBit ransomware attacks against victims in the U.S. and around the world. According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday, 20-year-old Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov is accused of carrying out five cyberattacks between August 2020 and March 2023, four of which deployed the notorious LockBit ransomware. “Astamirov allegedly participated in a conspiracy with other members of the LockBit…