Woman with Muscular Dystrophy Says She Was Dropped During 'Traumatic' Experience Flying Home for the Holidays (Exclusive)Insurgents reach gates of Syria’s capital, threatening to upend decades of Assad rule
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'A real pain in the a**e' - Independent shop is burgled but customers rally to helpFrom left: NDB Deputy Manager IT Security Kalhari Gamage, AVP – IT Amila Withanage, Senior Manager – IT Lasantha Gange, AVP – IT Lasantha Mathupala, CEO Kelum Edirisinghe, CIO/VP – IT Indika Gunawardena, Bureau Veritas Sri Lanka Country GM Shan Nanayakkara, NDB DCEO K.V. Vinoj, Bureau Veritas Sri Lanka Head of Operations – Certification Service Line Randima Ekanayake, Manager Subash De Silva, NDB Head of IT Security Rasika Sampath, Tech Lead – Software Development Viraga Mahesh Hiripitiya NDB Bank has reached an extraordinary milestone by becoming the first commercial bank in Sri Lanka to secure all three globally recognised ISO certifications: ISO 27001:2022 for Information Security, ISO 22301:2019 for Business Continuity Management, and most recently, ISO 20000:2018 for IT Service Management. The attainment of ISO 20000:2018 underscores the bank’s commitment to operational excellence and delivering secure, resilient, and high-quality IT services that meet the evolving needs of customers and stakeholders. NDB’s journey is marked by several firsts in the Sri Lankan banking industry. The bank was the first in the industry to upgrade its ISO 27001 certification to the latest 2022 version for Information Security Management and the first to secure ISO 22301:2019 for Business Continuity Management. These certifications, achieved ahead of regulatory requirements, demonstrate NDB’s commitment to innovation, security, and resilience, in line with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s (CBSL) recommendations for enhancing compliance and operational robustness. Speaking on this remarkable accomplishment, NDB Bank CIO and Vice President – IT Indika Gunawardena stated, “Our ISO certifications reflect more than just adherence to international standards; they highlight our relentless commitment to technological innovation, operational resilience, and customer trust. We are dedicated to leveraging the latest technologies to enhance service delivery and set new industry benchmarks.” This milestone comes during a year of extraordinary achievements for NDB Bank. Earlier in 2024, NDB was recognised as the “Technology Resilient Company of the Year 2024” under the local banking category” at the prestigious Digital Trust Awards 2024, organised by ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association), which is a testament to its advanced technological infrastructure and innovation. Additionally, NDB secured recognition at the NBQSA Awards 2024, further solidifying its leadership in digital innovation and service excellence. NDB’s certifications are a testament to the expertise of its skilled teams and robust technology infrastructure. By adhering to internationally recognised standards, NDB reinforces its position as a trusted banking partner for customers and stakeholders alike. The bank’s focus on operational excellence ensures that customers can rely on secure, innovative, and efficient services that meet global benchmarks. As NDB Bank continues to raise the bar in the banking sector, this ISO trio milestone serves as a resounding affirmation of its leadership in driving technological resilience, operational excellence, and customer trust.
CARSON, Calif. — Joseph Paintsil and Dejan Joveljic scored in the first half, and the LA Galaxy won their record sixth MLS Cup championship with a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Saturday. After striking twice in the first 13 minutes of the final with goals from their star forwards, the Galaxy nursed their lead through a scoreless second half to raise their league's biggest trophy for the first time since 2014. MLS' most successful franchise struggled through most of the ensuing decade, even finishing 26th in the 29-team league last year. But the Galaxy turned everything around this season with a high-scoring new lineup that finished second in the Western Conference and then streaked through the playoffs with a whopping 18 goals in five games to win another crown. Sean Nealis scored for the seventh-seeded Red Bulls, whose improbable charge through the playoffs ended one win shy of its first Cup championship. With the league's youngest roster, New York fell just short of becoming the lowest-seeded team to win MLS' playoff tournament under first-year German coach Sandro Schwarz. Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy made four saves to win his second MLS title in three seasons. He was the MVP of the 2022 MLS Cup Final for the Galaxy's crosstown rival, Los Angeles FC. The Galaxy won this title without perhaps their most important player. Riqui Puig, the playmaking midfielder from Barcelona who ran their offense impressively all season long, tore a ligament in his knee last week in the Western Conference final. Puig watched the game in a suit, but his teammates hadn't forgotten him: After his replacement, Gastón Brugman, set up LA's opening goal with a superb pass, Paintsil held up Puig's jersey to their fans during the celebration. Paintsil put the Galaxy ahead in the ninth minute when he ran onto that sublime pass from Brugman and pounded home his 14th MLS goal — including four in the playoffs — in the Ghanaian forward's outstanding first season. Just four minutes later, Joveljic sprinted past four New York defenders and chipped home the 21st goal of his outstanding year as the Galaxy's striker. Nealis got New York on the scoreboard in the 28th minute when he volleyed home a ball that got loose in LA's penalty area after a corner. The Galaxy's usually shaky defense gave up another handful of good chances before reaching halftime with a tenuous lead. The second half was lively, but scoreless. Red Bulls captain Emil Forsberg hit the outside of the post in the 72nd minute, while Gabriel Pec and Galaxy substitute Marco Reus nearly converted chances a few moments later. The ball got loose again in the Galaxy's penalty area in the third minute of extra time, but two Red Bulls couldn't finish. The Galaxy bench rushed onto the field and prematurely celebrated a victory in the seventh minute of injury time, only to be herded back off for another 30 seconds of play. The Galaxy finished 17-0-3 this season at their frequently renamed suburban stadium, where the sellout crowd of 26,812 for the final included several robust cheering sections of traveling Red Bulls supporters hoping to see their New Jersey-based club's breakthrough on MLS' biggest stage. The Galaxy's Greg Vanney became the fourth coach to win an MLS title with two clubs. The former Galaxy player also won it all with Toronto in 2017. The club famous for employing global stars from David Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Robbie Keane and Javier "Chicharito" Hernández rebuilt itself this season with lesser-known young talents from around the world. The Galaxy signed Pec from Brazil and the Ghanaian Paintsil out of Belgium, and the duo combined with incumbent Serbian striker Joveljic to form a potent attack that could outscore almost any MLS opponent. But the Galaxy also relied heavily on Puig, their Catalan catalyst and one of MLS' best players. Puig stayed in last week's game after injuring his knee, and he even delivered the decisive pass to Joveljic for the game's only goal. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!Opposition fighters are at Damascus' gates. Who are they and what now?NEW YORK -- He's making threats, traveling abroad and negotiating with world leaders. Donald Trump has more than a month and a half to go before he's sworn in for a second term. But the Republican president-elect is already moving aggressively not just to fill his Cabinet and outline policy goals, but to achieve those priorities . Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, prompting emergency calls and a visit from Canada's prime minister that resulted in what Trump claimed were commitments from both U.S. allies on new border security measures. The incoming president has warned there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY" if, before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, Hamas does not release the hostages being held in Gaza . He has threatened to block the purchase of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company, warning "Buyer Beware!!!” And this weekend, Trump was returning to the global stage, joining a host of other foreign leaders for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was ravaged by a fire. On Saturday, he met with French President Emmanuel Macron — joined at the last minute by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and had plans to see Britain's Prince William also in Paris. Absent in Paris: lame duck President Joe Biden, who has largely disappeared from headlines, except when he issued a pardon of his son , Hunter, who was facing sentencing for gun crimes and tax evasion. First lady Jill Biden is attending in his place. “I think you have seen more happen in the last two weeks than you’ve seen in the last four years. And we’re not even there yet,” Trump said in an over-the-top boast at an awards ceremony Thursday night . For all of Trump's bold talk, though, it is unclear how many of his efforts will bear fruit. The pre-inauguration threats and deal-making are highly unusual, like so much of what Trump does, said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University. “Transitions are always a little complicated in this way. Even though we talk about one president at a time," he said, “the reality is one president plus. And that plus can act assertively sometimes." Zelizer said that is particularly true of Trump, who was president previously and already has relationships with many foreign leaders such as Macron, who invited both Trump and Biden to Paris this weekend as part of the Notre Dame celebration. “Right now he’s sort of governing even though he’s not the president yet. He’s having these public meetings with foreign leaders, which aren't simply introductions. He's staking out policy and negotiating things from drug trafficking to tariffs," Zelizer said. Trump already has met with several foreign leaders, in addition to a long list of calls. He hosted Argentinian President Javier Milei in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago club in November. After the tariff threat, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago for a three-hour dinner meeting. Canadian officials later said the country is ready to make new investments in border security, with plans for more helicopters, drones and law enforcement officers. Last Sunday, Trump dined with Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli prime minister. Incoming Trump aides have also been meeting with their future foreign counterparts. On Wednesday, several members of Trump's team, including incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz, met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelenskyy, in Washington, as Ukraine tries to win support for its ongoing efforts to defend itself from Russian invasion, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Yermak also met with Trump officials in Florida, he wrote on X . That comes after Trump's incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Qatar and Israel for high-level talks about a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza, according to a U.S familiar with the efforts, meeting with the prime ministers of both countries. There is no prohibition on incoming officials or nominees meeting with foreign officials, and it is common and fine for them to do so — unless those meetings are designed to subvert or otherwise impact current U.S. policy. Trump aides were said to be especially cognizant of potential conflicts given their experience in 2016, when interactions between Trump allies and Russian officials came under scrutiny. That included a phone call in which Trump's incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, discussed new sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, suggesting things would improve after Trump became president. Flynn was later charged with lying to the FBI about the conversation. Trump’s incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that, “All transition officials have followed applicable laws in their interactions with foreign nationals.” She added: “World leaders recognize that President Trump is returning to power and will lead with strength to put the best interests of the United States of America first again. That is why many foreign leaders and officials have reached out to correspond with President Trump and his incoming team.” Such efforts can nonetheless cause complications. If, say, Biden is having productive conversations on a thorny foreign policy issue and Trump weighs in, that could make it harder for Biden “because people are hearing two different voices” that may be in conflict, Zelizer said. Leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Netanyahu may also anticipate a more favorable incoming administration and wait Biden out, hoping for more a better deal. It also remains unclear how extensively the Biden administration has been kept apprised of Trump transition efforts. Although there is no requirement that an incoming administration coordinate calls and meetings with foreign officials with the State Department or National Security Council, that has long been considered standard practice. That is, in part, because transition teams, particularly in their early days and weeks, do not always have the latest information about the state of relations with foreign nations and may not have the resources, including interpretation and logistical ability, to handle such meetings efficiently. Still, the Biden and Trump teams have been talking, particularly on the Middle East, with the incoming and outgoing administrations having agreed to work together on efforts to free hostages who remain in held in Gaza, according to a U.S. official, who, like others, was not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive talks and spoke on condition of anonymity. That includes conversations between Witkoff and Biden’s foreign policy team as well as Waltz and Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Last month, Biden administration officials said they had kept Trump’s team closely apprised of efforts to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border. “I just want to be clear to all of our adversaries, they can’t play the incoming Trump administration off of the Biden administration. I’m regularly talking to the Biden people. And so, this is not a moment of opportunity or wedges for them," Waltz said Friday in a Fox Business interview. But when it comes to immigration, Biden administration officials haven’t been entirely in the loop on discussions around how to execute on Trump’s pledge to deport millions of migrants, according to four administration officials with knowledge of the transition who spoke on condition of anonymity. That’s not terribly surprising given how differently the teams view migration. Trump’s team, meanwhile, is already claiming credit for everything from gains in the stock and cryptocurrency markets to a decision by Walmart to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies Trump opposes. “Promises Kept — And President Trump Hasn’t Even Been Inaugurated Yet,” read one press release that claimed, in part, that both Canada and Mexico have already pledged "immediate action” to help “stem the flow of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and deadly drugs entering the United States." Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has stopped short of saying Trump mischaracterized their call in late November. But she said Friday that Trump “has his own way of communicating, like when we had the phone call and he wrote that we were going to close the border. That was never talked about in the phone call.” Earlier this week, Mexico carried out what it claimed was its largest seizure of fentanyl pills ever. Seizures over the summer had been as little as 50 grams per week, and after the Trump call, they seized more than a ton. Security analyst David Saucedo said that "under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.” Biden, too, tried to take credit for the seizure in a statement Friday night. ___ Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Colleen Long and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
SANTA CLARA — Brandon Allen prepared as if he was the 49ers’ starting quarterback all week, but the reality didn’t hit home until Friday, when Brock Purdy again missed practice. “I know he had a plan for his shoulder all week, rest it a little bit on Wednesday and we’d split reps,” Allen said of Purdy. “I think the plan Thursday was to come out and practice. I guess in warmups it just wasn’t feeling right. I found out (Friday).” Allen, a 32-year-old veteran in his ninth season, will start Sunday when the 49ers (5-5) visit the Green Bay Packers (7-3) at Lambeau Field. Purdy was ruled out with a shoulder injury sustained in a 20-17 loss to Seattle , the first time he has missed a start because of injury after 31 regular-season and six postseason starts. Here are five things to know about Allen: 1. Arkansas roots The Fayetteville, Arkansas native’s father Bobby spent more than 20 years as an Arkansas assistant coach. After a redshirt season in 2011, Allen played in 42 games with 38 starts for the Razorbacks. As a senior, Allen completed 57.4 percent of his passes for 3,440 yards, 30 touchdowns and eight interceptions as Arkansas went 8-5. His brother Austin took over as the Arkansas quarterback. In his ninth season, only Joe Ferguson (11 seasons) of the Buffalo Bills has more time in the NFL among Arkansas quarterbacks. 2. Professional route Drafted in the sixth round by the Jacksonville Jaguars, Allen spent his rookie season behind Blake Bortles and Chad Henne as a third-string quarterback and did not play. He was claimed off waivers by the Los Angeles Rams in 2017 and played behind Jared Goff and Sean Mannion before being signed by the Denver Broncos in 2019. Allen won his first start against Cleveland 24-19 in Week 9 of that season, passing for 193 yards and two touchdowns. Allen signed with Cincinnati in 2020, spent time on the practice squad and was promoted to the active roster in November. Subbing for Joe Burrow, Allen had his career-best game, passing for 371 yards and two touchdowns in a 37-31 win. Allen is 2-7 as an NFL starter with 1,611 yards passing, 10 touchdowns, six interceptions and a 78.0 passer rating. 3. Signing with the 49ers Allen became a 49er on May 8, 2023, signing as a free agent. The 49ers, who up to that point seldom kept a third quarterback on the 53-man roster, kept Allen as a No. 3 all season behind Purdy and Sam Darnold after the previous year’s injuries to Trey Lance, Jimmy Garoppolo, and finally Purdy in the NFC Championship Game. Allen did not take a snap. 4. Installed as No. 2 QB Allen signed another one-year contract with the 49ers for one year and $1.21 million (which is more than the $985,000 that Purdy makes on his rookie deal). The 49ers also signed Joshua Dobbs to a one-year, guaranteed $2.35 million contract. Allen and Dobbs competed throughout training camp, with Allen earning the nod from coach Kyle Shanahan. “You’ve got to make a decision. Usually I don’t want to have to make it,” Shanahan said. “I want it to be that obvious, let it play out. Brandon had the head start just being here. I thought he did some better things in practice.” 5. Familiarity with the system While in Denver, Allen’s offensive coordinator was Rich Scangarello, who was the quarterbacks coach under Shanahan in 2017-18. In Los Angeles, the head coach was Sean McVay and the offensive coordinator was Matt LaFleur, both of whom run variations of the Shanahan offense. In 2018, Zac Taylor was his quarterbacks coach with the Rams. Taylor, upon being hired as head coach in Cincinnati, signed Allen to back up Burrow.Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd. Announces Board Member Resignation
Insurgents reach gates of Syria’s capital, threatening to upend decades of Assad rulePALISADES TAHOE SKI RESORT — At midnight, a slender moon hangs above the snowy Sierra Nevada, casting only a faint glow on a sheer cliff and the dark canyon below. But snowcat operator “Bandit” Ferrante has laser-guided vision, measuring snow depth 150 feet ahead and to each side to sculpt the slopes with precision. By dawn, crowds will start arriving to ski and ride the weekend’s fresh powder. “These advancements are changing the way we do things,” said Ferrante, 36, who drives a new $400,000 German-made PistenBully rig with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to prepare the trails. “I see exactly where we’re going, and what’s going on.” After two winters of heavy snow, the snowfall so far this winter has been sporadic. While Mother Nature is always fickle, climate change could create less reliable snow, spelling hardship for the businesses and mountain communities that depend on storms for their economic survival. So resorts seek to make and protect each precious flake. Big corporations running Palisades, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood and Mammoth Mountain have made major investments, worth many millions of dollars, in what’s dubbed “snow management.” With some daily lift tickets exceeding $250, the resorts seek to deliver a dependable high-end experience. Initially just farm tractors on tracks, snowcats have evolved into machines of design, detailed craftsmanship and computer-driven tools. Inside the warmth of his cab, with a chatty podcast for company, Ferrante monitors a computer screen with color-coded snow depths, guiding him on where to push and pull snow for the best coverage. Its SNOWsat LiDAR remote sensing technology uses laser pulses to measure snow depth. With accuracy to within an inch, it can construct perfect snowboard half-pipes or World Cup ski race terrain. The joystick that directs the 12-ton machine is smooth, responsive and comfortable to grasp. The blade shifts in 17 different directions, with wings to shovel the snow. With a sensor that detects incline, the powerful tiller automatically rises and falls when routes get steep. It’s turned a once lonely and tedious task into a skill-driven profession. “You keep learning new things,” said Ferrante, a South Lake Tahoe native with nearly 20 years of resort experience. A tidy tattoo — a snowcat control stick — adorns his neck. At competitive “Groomer Games” every spring, representatives of all California ski resorts gather to test their expertise by pushing a golf ball through a maze. Innovations in snow-making tools — such as the $40,000 Super PoleCat — perform alchemy, mixing massive drafts of water, air and electricity to cover miles of runs. Some have built-in automated weather stations. Snowcats maximize the efficiency of snowmaking. Some are simple utility vehicles, hauling things around the mountain. Others are “trooper carriers,” moving ski patrollers. “Dig rigs” have backhoes to excavate buried equipment. A few have forks, for installing fences and seats on race days. The smallest cats are adroit at digging out chairlifts and clearing sidewalks. “You use the right tool for the right job,” said Brendan Gibbons, director of snow surface at Palisades Tahoe. The most prized snowcats at Palisades are the new LiDAR-equipped machines. They are leading the fleets that are racing across the resort this weekend to groom freshly fallen powder, sending information by cell signal to the less well-equipped machines. Until recently, snowcats relied on GPS to measure snow depth; the technology knows how high the machine is sitting above the ground. But this tool offers a limited view of what’s directly under the rig and front blade, not what lies ahead. “It was a great start to this technology, but it only allowed us to see how deep the snow is where we’ve been, and where we are,” said Gibbons. “LIDAR shows us what the snow is before we get to it.” LiDAR also measures the volume of piles of manmade snow, helping guide its use. The tool is already in use in research and government agencies to study snow from the air. It helps water districts measure future water reserves. It can identify avalanche danger. Related Articles Technology | France rushes aid to Mayotte after Cyclone Chido leaves hundreds feared dead Technology | Here’s where burrowing owls have disappeared in California Technology | US hikes tariffs on imports of Chinese solar wafers, polysilicon and tungsten products Technology | Monarch butterflies to be listed as a threatened species in US Technology | Witness sea level rise in real time at king tide watch event in Manhattan Beach It works by sending out up to 200,000 laser pulses per second. Then it measures the time of flight — how long it takes the laser to hit the snow and bounce back to the instrument. It calculates distance by using the known speed of light and the time it takes the laser to travel. In the summer, LiDAR builds a digital model of the bare terrain. In the winter, Bandit and other “night crawlers” creep along the mountain’s cold contours, taking snow measurements. Managers study the freshly updated maps on their phones, then strategize a nighttime plan based on weather, wind, melting and skier traffic. After a long day of wear and tear, LiDAR helps “clean up the holes, remove the moguls and return the slope back to a nice, perfect skiing surface,” said Brian Demarest, SNOWsat manager for Kassbohrer All Terrain Vehicles in Reno, which sells PistenBully (“trail worker,” loosely translated, in German). Snowcats no longer lurch and rock. An eight-hour shift “is like driving to L.A.,” said Gibbons. The snowcat’s taco-shaped blade can turn in 17 different directions. On each side of the blade is a wing that shoves the snow left or right. Its weight compresses the snow as it rolls, squeezing out dangerous air pockets and creating a more firm surface. Each track works independently, so the rig can pivot. Cleats add traction. In the back is a spinning barrel with teeth, which chews up the snow. The barrel’s spin speed is adjustable, influencing how much the flakes heat up and bind to each other. A comb, also adjustable, drags behind to deposit rows of perfect corduroy. Grooming is still dangerous, with peril on slippery and avalanche-prone slopes. One recent winter, when winds hit 192 mph gusts, machines skidded on ice. Ferrante arrives at Palisades in mid-afternoon from his home in Garnerville, Nevada, to get his assignment for the night’s “swing shift.” When he’s done, he’ll hand it off to a colleague on the graveyard shift that grooms until the lifts open. By 5 a.m., he’s in bed. “I don’t get lonely,” said Ferrante, who drinks a thermos of black tea to stay alert. Food can be heated by the exhaust pipe. Throughout the long night hours, operators coordinate with each other, traveling together when there’s avalanche danger. A winch can help secure a machine, allowing it to work on steep slopes. Ferrante sees coyotes, deer, porcupines, and occasional bear. One crew saw migrating ducks fall from the sky, lost in a storm. His crew started the season with “track packing” to compress November’s snow. Now, with the arrival of a new storm, he’ll push snow into rigid “wind rows,” like fences, to catch blowing drifts; later teams will smooth them out. Post-storm priorities are roads, then ramps, then runs. His discipline, largely unrecognized by resort visitors, is building the foundation for a whole season of sport. “There is a ‘skill ceiling’ that’s infinite,” said Ferrante. “You’re never going to be the very best. You’re never going to figure it all out.”
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By ERIC TUCKER WASHINGTON (AP) — A ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said Friday. Biden administration officials said this month that at least eight telecommunications companies , as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. But Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters Friday that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks. The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of “a limited number of individuals.” Though the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose whose communications were accessed. Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but a “large number” were in the Washington-Virginia area. Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their texts and phone calls, she said. The FBI said most of the people targeted by the hackers are “primarily involved in government or political activity.” Neuberger said the episode highlighted the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, something the Federal Communications Commission is to take up at a meeting next month. “We know that voluntary cyber security practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said. The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking.Funsho Adegbola, the daughter of the late Chief Bola Ige , has recounted how her father was assassinated. Naija News reports that Ige, Nigeria’s ex-Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, was assassinated in his Ibadan home on 23 December 2001. Speaking during an interview on the radio talk show State Affairs with Edmund Obilo, as reported by PUNCH Online on Friday, Adegbola shared some eerie premonitions and symbolic warnings she got before her father’s death. According to her, she dreamt that she was wearing a black dress and mourning. Troubled by the dream, she confided in her father. His response was reassuring yet unsettling in hindsight: “ Nobody can kill me; my life is in God’s hands.” Adegbola recounted a peculiar incident at the palace of the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, just days before the assassination. During a chieftaincy ceremony for the late Chief Stella Obasanjo, Ige’s cap was mysteriously removed. “ He told me, ‘In my entire political life, nobody has ever removed my cap,’” Adegbola recalled, emphasising how deeply symbolic and unprecedented her father found the act. Reflecting on her father’s life, Adegbola said, “ As Minister of Power and Steel, he returned 16 official cars assigned to him, saying, ‘I can’t maintain more than two cars. “ His Spartan lifestyle extended to his notably basic security arrangements. “After his assassination, Kema Chikwe visited our home and was shocked to see that our doors were ordinary carpentry wooden doors, easily breakable. “My father had no bulletproof doors or elaborate security, unlike many public officials. ” She recalled a warning from a friend who had read a newspaper article suggesting her father might not return alive from an upcoming visit to Ife. “I told him, ‘Daddy, it appears they will do something to you.’ He replied, ‘I am surrounded by the White Light of Christ through which nothing evil can penetrate.” Adegbola noted that her father fasted daily, except on Sundays, and relied on his spirituality to navigate challenges. She also linked the threats to her father’s political battles, particularly with Iyiola Omisore, then Deputy Governor of Osun State, during the era of Governor Bisi Akande’s administration. “ There were political uprisings in Osun State then, and tensions were high ,” she said. The inability to obtain justice for Ige’s murder remains a devastating wound for the family. Adegbola lamented how her mother, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, was unable to secure justice for her husband. “It was a cruel irony that broke her spirit,” she added.
