By Remix News

A foreign driver with an unbelievably high blood alcohol content (BAC), one that would routinely kill most people, decided to drive his car at an unbelievable 220 kilometers per hour (137 miles per hour) on the German autobahn. His passenger had an even higher blood alcohol content.

The man was traveling on the A67 in southern Hesse and was so drunk that most medical literature indicates that he should be dead or in a coma.

One witness followed the car and called the police after noticing the man zigzagging between lanes and driving in an erratic manner late one evening.

Officers stopped the car, which had foreign license plates, and checked both occupants of the vehicle in the parking lot of the A5 autobahn.

Incredibly, the passenger of the vehicle had an even higher blood alcohol level.

“A breathalyzer test carried out on the spot showed a blood alcohol level of 4.16 per mille for the driver and no blood alcohol level for the passenger, as the device switches off when the blood alcohol level reaches 5 per mille!” the police wrote in a statement, including an exclamation mark to indicate their shock.

The driver’s license was immediately confiscated, and he was taken into custody.

German media outlet Welt wrote that “The fact that there were no injuries or deaths was likely due to mere coincidence.”

In Germany, drivers are not permitted to drive with a blood alcohol level over 0.5 per mille or higher. At 1.1 per mille, it is a criminal offense, as the law states there is an “absolute inability to drive.”

“A blood alcohol level above 4 per mille poses an acute risk to life,” the ADAC, the German automobile club, the largest in Europe, writes. “Important protective reflexes are lost, those affected fall into a coma, and can suffer shock with progressive circulatory failure, even complete respiratory and cardiac arrest.”

A blood alcohol concentration of more than 5 per mille almost always leads to death.

The fact that the passenger had a blood alcohol level above 5 and did not die is remarkable in itself.

There is speculation about the identity of the foreigners; however, the German media did not indicate their nationality or what country the vehicle was registered under.

Although the 5 per mille level seems remarkable, it is far from the highest blood alcohol level ever recorded. One poorly sourced claim notes a Polish driver recorded an incredible 1.480 percent level, which was recorded after he crashed his car. Despite the level, he survived, only later to die from the injuries from the crash — and not the alcohol. However, the Guinness Book of World Records claims the highest level was 1.374 percent, also set by a Polish man who survived but suffered serious damage to his internal organs.

A team of Goldman analysts led by Brian Singer reaffirmed his bullish view on U.S. power-sector Green Capex after the IRS recently clarified eligibility rules for solar and wind tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The new “physical work” test replaces the prior 5% capex rule but is not expected to constrain utility-scale solar and onshore wind projects that much.

“While the OBBBA should meaningfully reduce government outlay initially meant to stimulate diverse sources of Green Capex, we continue to see resilient levels of US power sector Green Capex — we estimate $2.0 trillion in 2023-32,” Singer wrote in a note to clients. 

He flagged investment opportunities across the power and water infrastructure supply chain, where the “Reliability Imperative” will continue to funnel capital allocations:

• Meet rising power demand growth — which our Utilities team expects will continue to grow 2.5% per year through 2030 in the U.S.

• Replace aging infrastructure.

• Enhance resiliency to extreme temperatures/weather events.

Singer outlined the green energy stocks to own:

With power continuing to gain share in Green Capex — investment towards decarbonization, infrastructure and clean water Sustainable Development Goals — and our outlook for robust deployment of renewables in the shorter term, natural gas in the medium term and nuclear in the longer term, we continue to see investment opportunities throughout the power and water Reliability supply chain. This includes Buy-rated First Solar, GE Vernova, MasTec, Quanta Services, Xcel Energy, Xylem levered in part to the U.S. market.

Visualizing the companies Goldman believes will see tailwinds from Powering Up America into the clean, digital age…

Singer believes Powering Up America to support data centers will be a mix of green tech power generation, nuclear, plus NatGas… 

As referenced earlier, we believe U.S. generational growth in power demand will not just be supportive for Green Capex (which includes nuclear power) but non-Green Capex as well. As we have previously highlighted, to meet data center power demand growth we continue to expect 60% of generation capacity additions to come from gas-fired plants. Additionally, the Reliability Imperative may drive utilities and regulators to delay coal-fired power plant retirements.

The U.S. is still on track to spend trillions upgrading its power grid and building new generation for data centers, but EVs and some other green tech are losing momentum in President Trump’s second term because of OBBBA, pulling total investment below initial IRA-era forecasts.

More in the full Goldman note available to pro subs.

Via Watches Of Espionage,

What watches have historically kept this emerging bloc that’s challenging the Western order on time?

2025 Russia–United States Summit

President Trump recently met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska, a land mass that was purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867 for a measly 7.2 million dollars. The meeting didn’t amount to a deal when it came to ending the war in Russia and Ukraine, and notably, neither leader was visibly wearing a watch in the photographs made available to the public. 

Putin has an extensive watch collection, including an 18k yellow gold Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar Moon Phase, a platinum A. Lange & Sohne, a Blancpain, and an IWC, but since the invasion of Ukraine has been seen only wearing a Russian-made watch from the Imperial Peterhof Factory (Raketa). Of note, Putin was seen wearing the watch in a visit to Magadan while en route to the Alaska summit.

In the intelligence world, every detail is scrutinized, including this one. We have discussed CIA analysis of foreign leaders’ timepieces (read HERE), and it is reasonable to conclude this was a conscious decision to demonstrate Russian prowess and watchmaking during a time of war. Just as the B-2 flanked by four F-35 Lightning IIs flying over as Trump and Putin strolled the red carpet was meant as a show of American air power, wearing a Russian-made watch could be meant to telegraph unity and a strong allegiance to Country. 

The Big Four – Hard Targets

Russia is part of a larger grouping referred to at CIA as “The Big Four” hard targets or CRINK, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. We have to ask ourselves, what can we learn about these nations by looking through the lens of watches? 

For Western intelligence agencies, including CIA, the Big Four are priority collection targets, and they present a particular challenge for traditional intelligence collection. Their global presence looms large, and their military capabilities are not to be underestimated. 

Simply put, the Moscow-Beijing alliance fuels the national security concerns of the West. It’s no secret that both of these nations pose a global threat to Western interests, and at Watches of Espionage, we look at geopolitical tensions through the lens of timepieces. Surprisingly, much can be learned from analyzing the military-issued watches of both China and Russia (focusing on its Soviet period). 

Meanwhile, to a much lesser extent, Iran and North Korea have their own watch culture in the military and intelligence space worthy of exploration, which we will address in a future Dispatch.

Why Hasn’t The Mainstream Watch Culture Covered These Watches? Are Military Watches From the Russia-China Bloc Collectible? 

The majority of traditional military watch collectors don’t fawn over Chinese or Russian watches with the same fervor as they do Swiss and Japanese-made tool watches. But one thing should be made clear, that’s not because these nations are devoid of any watchmaking culture. It’s quite the opposite. Watchmaking is a rich and storied tradition in both China and Russia. But the military history, the enigmatic nature of these watches, and most interestingly, what they can tell us about these nations make them deserving of discussion. 

Watches have historically been viewed solely as a commodity when it comes to Chinese and Russian manufacturers (although there are exceptions, more on that later). They’re cheap to procure, made with cost efficiency in mind, and often don’t have the same perception of quality as typical Swiss watches. And they aren’t meant to. 

It’s important to understand that high quality, longevity, and artistry are not part of the production philosophy of watches, especially military watches, from Russia and China. Swiss brands put emotion at the core of the idea of “Swiss Watchmaking”, and those same companies that focused on the emotional component of watchmaking tradition also produced watches for Western military forces.

In addition to the overall “feel” of the watches, trade sanctions and geographical barriers did not allow the West to procure these watches when they were widely distributed. China was a closed state until the late ’70s, and the Soviet Union had similar policies up until dissolution when it came to trade and foreign visitors. When mechanical watchmaking was at its height in the ’50s through the ’70s, these states were not considered when it came to importing watches to the Western world. The inverse is true as well, and there were trade sanctions in place that made it difficult for the Soviet Union and China to purchase watches from Western nations. 

To follow are a number of notable watches connected to the military from both China and Russia (again, focusing on the Soviet Union).

The Sleeping Giant: Chinese Military Watches

China has the world’s largest military by personnel count, with more than two million active duty service members; that statistic is not to be confused with who has the strongest military. 

Recently, China’s sixth-generation fighter, referred to unofficially as the J-36, has emerged as a formidable contender for global air superiority. It signals a significant step forward for Beijing in a military technology race with Washington, but every capability of the J-36 has already been demonstrated by aircraft in the US inventory. In other words, it’s nothing new. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a credible threat. 

The same sort of pattern, a technology emerging in the West with China later introducing a version, happened with watches in the ’60s. It’s something China has proven to excel at, taking a known technology and making it cheaper and easier to produce at scale. 

In the 1950s, brands like Omega and Breitling famously produced chronographs for aviation applications for Western militaries, and even space programs. Meanwhile, the Chinese government went through a period when they produced use-case specific watches for military forces shortly after, the most famous being the 1963 Chronograph. It was issued directly to select pilots in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force in 1966. At the time, the PLAAF was operating fighters like the Shenyang J-5 and Shenyang J-6, domestically produced versions of the USSR’s MiG-17 and MiG-19, respectively. The PLAAF served mainly as a defense force, although it would frequently engage with the Taiwanese Air Force along the Taiwan Strait. 

The government-sponsored watch production eventually became known as Sea-Gull. Today, the company exports watches globally and has found a niche following in the collecting community. A version of the 1963 Chronograph is still produced and has garnered attention as an affordable way to acquire a watch with genuine military history. The China of today, with its socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics, is undoubtedly much different from the China of the ’60s during the Cultural Revolution. Now there’s a pathway for profiting from what was once a tool only the military had access to. 

While the 1963 Chronograph dominates the conversation around Chinese military pilots’ watches, it’s the Shanghai Watch Factory SS2 and SS4 that epitomize the Chinese military dive watch. Around the same time as the need for a Chronograph emerged, so did the need for a reliable watch that could stand up to austere environments, particularly those requiring high water resistance. China has close to 9,000 miles of coastline, and during the development phase of the SS2 and SS4, the People’s Liberation Army Navy was shifting from a coastal defense force to an emerging global naval power through heavy investment and restructuring. 

The watch follows the same format as just about any dive watch: a clear, legible dial paired with a rotating bezel to track elapsed time. It also featured 200m of water resistance, which was a significant achievement for a fledgling watch producer at the time. 

The “expedition watch”, as it’s come to be known, features a pared-down dial without a turning bezel, and the expression of this concept to come out of China was the Seagull ST5. A number of these watches were issued to the team that established China’s presence in Antarctica. A team of 591 Chinese expedition members traveled to Antarctica in 1984 to begin construction of the Great Wall Station on King George Island, which is still operational today. 

Red Rus: Soviet Era Military Watches To Today’s Russian Military Watches

There’s beauty in functionality, but Soviet-era military vehicles and aircraft certainly push the limits when it comes to that notion with their polarizing designs. The watches of the time were no different. The design and engineering philosophy was simple: make something just robust enough to stand up to the rigors of hard wear, but cheap enough that it could be mass-produced by a state-owned enterprise. Little attention was paid to refinement and finishing, because when one watch broke, there was another ready to take its place. Accuracy wasn’t held in particularly high regard, either.

But they did what they needed to do well enough to keep a Cold War power on time. Like the TU-95 Bear or the UAZ 469, there’s a certain intrigue to engineering born in the Soviet era, partly because it was so antithetical to Western ideals. Communism created a production philosophy that de-emphasized longevity and ultimate quality. There was virtually no competition, just a number of state-owned watch producers making watches, and “consumers” (in this case, the military) had no freedom of choice. The most well-known watchmakers born in Soviet times were Vostok, Raketa, and Poljot.

And yet, these watches serve as fascinating insight into a state that sent the US into the Space Race, caused the Red Scare, and shifted the view on global nuclear destruction from a dystopian fantasy to a very real possibility. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few iconic Soviet/Russian military watches. 

Vostok Amphibia 

The Amphibia was initially conceived as a Soviet military dive watch but ended up becoming a fixture in modern mainstream collecting culture thanks to its on-screen appearance in the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, worn by Bill Murray. The first watches produced under the brand name Vostok came about in the mid-50s, and the company flourished during the Cold War as a leading producer of watches for the USSR Ministry of Defense. 

During WWII, the watchmaking industry was ordered to relocate from Moscow due to the possible threat of invasion and attack on industrial targets. The watchmaking industry was tasked with making bomb timers, aircraft instrumentation, and fuse-delay mechanisms for wartime efforts, so the relocation was part of a wartime strategy. The Second Moscow Watch Factory was set up far to the East of Moscow, and that morphed into the Chistopol Watch Factory, which eventually became Vostok in the mid-50s. 

The Amphibia isn’t a singular model, but rather a family of watches that emerged in the late ’60s. There are dozens of different variations under the Amphibia name, with different case designs, dials, bracelets, and automatic or manual-winding movements. Most of them, however, share one interesting feature: a “compressor” case. What distinguishes a compressor case from a standard dive watch case is in the way it’s designed to resist water; becoming more impervious to water ingress the deeper it goes.

This is because it “compresses” under pressure, squeezing the gaskets in such a way that the case becomes more watertight the deeper it goes. This isn’t unique to the Vostok Amphibia, however, and the term is generally associated with the Super Compressor watch cases manufactured by EPSA and utilized by numerous Swiss watchmakers during the 60s and 70s. 

In one iteration or another, from the Soviet to the modern era, Vostok Amphibia watches have been used by Russian military divers. 

Vostok Komandirskie 

Almost all Komandirskie models—like the Amphibia, it’s a family rather than a single model—share several attributes: They don’t hack, the power reserve is a meager 36 hours, the date doesn’t have a quick-set mechanism, and the bezel, like the Amphibia, is a “friction-fit” design, meaning there is no tactile clicking. Despite all this, they’re favored by military enthusiasts for one reason: They’re cheap. And they’re cheap because they got their start being mass-produced for the military. 

In 1965, the Vostok Commander, or Komandirskie, debuted. Like the name suggests, it was a watch for high-ranking military officials as opposed to folks with boots on the ground. It served as a platform for propaganda, too. Countless editions were created to celebrate various units, branches, anniversaries, characters, and Soviet military achievements. They were purportedly used as gifts to foreign dignitaries as well. 

Raketa: Then & Now

Raketa is Russian for “rocket”, and the brand officially took this name as Russia gained ground in the space race after Yuri Gagarin completed the first manned space flight. Historically, plenty of Raketa watches have been made for Soviet forces and civilians, with some of the most famous examples being the 24-hour models and the “big zero” models. Particularly useful in polar environments was the 24-hour format, due to the irregular nature of sunrise and sunset at extreme latitudes. The expedition members of the 16th Soviet Antarctic expedition were issued a model specifically developed for the task, and in classic Soviet watch fashion, the art on the dial is a not-so-subtle nod to the intended use of the watch. 

One of the hallmarks of Raketa watches is the “0” or “00” at the typical twelve o’clock position. There’s a legend, the stock and trade of many Swiss brands’ marketing departments, that Mikhail Gorbachev said, “it’s like on my watch, the Russian people want to start everything from zero,” when commenting on the dawn of the Perestroika era. 

In Russia’s modern mixed-market economy (generally a free market with guardrails put on by the government as well as support), Raketa lives on. But today, it utilizes modern marketing tactics and caters to a global audience. In short, it operates like any other watch brand. 

The Imperial Peterhof Factory, the brand manufacturing the watch that Putin has been seen wearing the past few years, is made in the same factory as Raketa watches in St. Petersburg. It’s important to note that the brand emerged only in recent history, but can loosely count the previous 300 years of craftsmanship happening in the eponymous Petrodvorets Watch Factory as part of its horological history. 

Soviet times couldn’t accommodate a “luxury” company of this sort, so naturally, it’s a young haute horology brand that puts forth Russia’s modern horological capabilities. Before the October Revolution in 1917, there was an incredibly strong emphasis on craftsmanship and micromechanical engineering in the Russian Empire, so there is some legitimate history and tradition to draw upon. 

Final Thoughts

Despite at times harsh comparisons to Western watchmaking standards, the military watches of China and Russia are more than crude tools or cheap imitations of Swiss icons; they are artifacts of states that define themselves in opposition to the West. To dismiss them outright as unrefined is to miss the point: their very austerity tells us something about the societies that produced them, just as much as a Rolex GMT-Master on the wrist of a Naval Aviator says something about ours. 

Whether strapped to a Russian combat diver under the ice in Murmansk, a PLAAF pilot in 1966, or today on Vladimir Putin himself, these watches remain small but telling signals in the larger contest for global power. For watch collectors and casual observers alike, they are reminders that timekeeping, like geopolitics, is never neutral.

The Axis Of Upheaval: The Military Watches Of Russia & China – What watches have historically kept this emerging bloc that’s challenging the Western order on time? (Read Below)https://t.co/LGYiEuLw9C

— Watches of Espionage (@watchesofespion) August 23, 2025

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Here’s more from Watches Of Espionage…

• These Are The Best Military And Intelligence Unit Watches

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Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Texas Senate on Aug. 23 passed a bill that will redraw Texas’s congressional maps and increase Republicans’ hold on the state’s U.S. House delegation by as many as five seats.

Its passage in the early hours of Saturday morning came after a daylong session.

After passing the Republican-dominated upper chamber in an 18 to 11 party-line vote, the bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law.

In line with a request from President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice, the bill would redraw the state’s congressional boundaries to favor Republicans.

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Aug. 21 signed a legislative package to authorize a Nov. 4 referendum to redraw California’s congressional maps in favor of Democrats. The changes are expected to be approved in the Democratic stronghold.

The map could increase Democrats’ hold on California’s U.S. House delegation by as many as five seats, endangering several previously safe Republicans.

On Thursday evening, the state Senate’s Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting met to discuss the bill, voting 5–3 in favor of reporting the bill to the Senate with a favorable recommendation.

The Texas House of Representatives passed the legislation on Aug. 20, after the more than 50 Democrats who had left the state earlier returned after it became clear that California would approve a legislative response to Texas’s passage of the bill.

Those Democrats returned to the state after a two-week standoff, during which the state Legislature was unable to achieve a quorum and was therefore gridlocked.

They returned after two conditions were met: the introduction of a legislative response in California and the end of the first special session of the state Legislature, which had been declared by Abbott.

The Trump administration, through the Department of Justice (DOJ), has encouraged the Texas redistricting, claiming that some of Texas’s districts are illegal under the Voting Rights Act, civil rights legislation designed to increase participation in federal elections and prevent discriminatory or race-based voting restrictions.

Current boundaries run afoul of the Voting Rights Act by relying on racial demographics to group minority voters into “coalition districts,” where no single racial group forms a majority, according to the DOJ.

The Texas bill was initially delayed for two weeks when a walkout by 50 Democratic state House members denied Republicans the quorum needed for a legitimate vote.

Those Texas Democrats said the redistricting was an attempt to maintain control of the U.S. House in the upcoming midterm elections.

During the state Senate debate on Friday, some lawmakers repeated the criticisms that the new Texas map violates federal law by diluting Hispanic and black voting power and discriminating on the basis of race.

State Sen. Royce West (D-District 23) predicted the new map would reduce the number of African Americans representing Texas in Washington from four to two.

“I call that retrogression,” West said.

State Sen. Phil King (R-District 10) who sponsored the bill, said repeatedly he had not considered race and that lawyers had assured him the bill meets all legal requirements.

“From my perspective, why would I use racial data?” he told his fellow senators. “Voting history is just much more accurate and is well established as a legal way to draw maps.”

The Democratic National Convention announced on July 28 that it will be sending some 250,000 texts to voters and readying 30,000 grassroots organizers to reach persuadable Republican and independent Texans in key districts.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed on Aug. 4 to explore ways to redraw the state’s congressional maps in response to Texas’s mid-cycle redistricting efforts.

The push for redistricting in Texas, California, and other states has prompted many to claim that one or both parties is attempting to make partisan gains through a strategic redrawing of the congressional map—behavior known colloquially as “gerrymandering.”

Often, districts are described as “gerrymandered” when they are in an odd or unusual shape that seems designed to ensure a particular outcome.

The term originated in the United States in the early 19th century, and is derived from the name of former Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry’s salamander-shaped district.

According to a 2022 poll by The Economist and YouGov, two-thirds of Americans considered gerrymandering to be a “major problem” in the United States, with only 23 percent describing it as a “minor problem.”

Darlene McCormick Sanchez, Jackson Richman and Reuters contributed to this report.

Unicorn companies are making a comeback fueled by the generative AI frenzy.

While startup funding experienced a lull after the 2021 bonanza, private companies are now seeing a flood of investment, particularly in AI-driven firms like OpenAI. At the same time, countries such as India and the UK are producing firms with sky-high valuations, reflecting an increasingly global unicorn landscape.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the most valuable unicorn companies in 2025, based on data from Crunchbase.

Ranked: The Top 30 Biggest Unicorn Companies

Below, we show the world’s top 30 unicorns by valuation as of July 4, 2025:

Texas-based SpaceX is expected to see $15.5 billion in revenue in 2025, according to a founder Elon Musk.

Driving the majority of revenue is its satellite business Starlink, which includes clients such as United Airlines, Deere, and the U.S. government. This year, Starlink is estimated to bring in $12.3 billion in revenue while NASA is set to drive $1.1 billion in space exploration contracts.

OpenAI ranks second globally with a $300 billion valuation. So far in 2025, it has reportedly doubled its annualized revenue to $12 billion, driven by its global user base of 700 million weekly active users.

With a $220 billion valuation, TikTok-parent ByteDance follows next. This year, the company expects revenue to grow 20% to $186 billion, hovering close to Meta’s projected $187 billion revenue estimates in 2025

To learn more about this topic from a global perspective, check out this graphic on the world’s fastest growing jobs by 2030.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration on Aug. 21 appealed a ruling made by a federal judge halting the expansion of the “Alligator Alcatraz” illegal immigrant detention center in the Everglades.

The appeal follows U.S. Judge Kathleen Williams’s ruling on Aug. 21 in favor of environmental groups who had brought a lawsuit against the facility, saying that it endangers the Everglades and its wildlife.

The ruling requires the state to stop sending detainees to the center and bars new construction there. It also orders that some aspects of the facility be dismantled as current detainees are moved elsewhere.

In response, DeSantis said at a news conference on Aug. 22 that the state remains committed to its mission of removing illegal immigrants despite the judge’s order on the usage of the detention facility.

The governor said the judge’s ruling was expected and that his office would “respond accordingly.”

“This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake. This was preordained,” he said. “This is not going to deter us. We’re going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission.”

DeSantis called Alligator Alcatraz a success, citing growing demand for similar facilities. The state plans to open a second detention center in Baker County. He said the new facility, to be named “Deportation Depot,” will have the capacity to hold up to 2,000 detainees.

“This mission is important. You either have a country or you don’t. You have people that are in this country that have already been ordered to be removed by the current system and yet the previous administration didn’t want to do anything about it,” he said.

The state filed a notice of appeal with the Eleventh Circuit on Aug. 21.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier stated on X that the appeal was filed “within hours” of the ruling. The facility “remains operational” to support the state’s immigration enforcement efforts, he added.

In the order, Williams demanded that authorities remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project” within 60 days. Some fencing and additional lighting that had already been installed must also be removed.

The judge said the decision was driven by a desire to align with Florida environmental law protecting the endangered Everglades.

For several years, “every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades,” Williams wrote. “This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

Joseph Lord contributed to this report.

Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com,

Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has come under a wave of threats from North Korean hackers seeking remote employment with the company.

North Korean IT workers are increasingly targeting Coinbase’s remote worker policy to gain access to its sensitive systems.

In response, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is rethinking the crypto exchange’s internal security measures, including requiring all workers to receive in-person training in the US, while people with access to sensitive systems will be required to hold US citizenship and submit to fingerprinting.

“DPRK is very interested in stealing crypto,” Armstrong told Cheeky Pint podcast host John Collins in a Thursday episode. “We can collaborate with law enforcement […] but it feels like there’s 500 new people graduating every quarter, from some kind of school they have, and that’s their whole job.”

He added that some operatives are coerced into working for the regime. “In many of these cases, it’s not the individual person’s fault. Their family is being coerced or detained if they don’t cooperate,” said Armstrong.

Brian Armstrong on the Cheeky Pint podcast. Source: YouTube

Armstrong’s comments come amid a wave of rising North Korean cyber activity beyond Coinbase.

In June, four North Korean operatives infiltrated multiple crypto firms as freelance developers, stealing a cumulative $900,000 from these startups, Cointelegraph reported.

Coinbase data leak could put users in physical danger

Armstrong’s new measures come three months after the exchange confirmed that less than 1% of its transacting monthly users were affected by a data breach, which may cost the exchange up to $400 million in reimbursement expenses, Cointelegraph reported on May 15.

However, the “human cost” of this data breach may be much higher for users, according to Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch and Arrington Capital, who highlighted that the breach included home addresses and account balances, leading to potential physical attacks.

Source: Michael Arrington

Among all United States crypto firms, the Coinbase brand was most impersonated in phishing attacks in 2024, fraudulently used across 416 reported phishing scams in the four previous years, according to a Mailsuite report shared with Cointelegraph.

US brands most impersonated by scammers. Source: Mailsuite

Accounting for all US brands, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, was the most impersonated brand by scammers, appearing in at least 10,457 reported scam incidents during the past four years.

The US Internal Revenue Service was the second on the list, having been impersonated in at least 9,762 scams.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project is under investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The probe, launched Aug. 19, will focus on whether project officials knowingly misrepresented the ridership projections and financial viability of the long-delayed and expensive rail line to secure federal and state funds.

Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has requested a staff-level briefing, documents, and communications related to the project.

“The [California High Speed Rail] Authority’s apparent repeated use of misleading ridership projections, despite longstanding warnings from experts, raises serious questions about whether funds were allocated under false pretenses,” Comer said in a statement.

“The massive cost overruns and lack of progress warrant a reassessment of whether [the authority] acted with transparency and complied with the law.”

The High Speed Rail Authority was first established in 1996 to plan a railway connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. Costs for the project were originally expected to reach $33 billion, and Californians were told it would be completed by 2020. Voters authorized the rail line in 2008, but to date, the state has not laid any track, and the railway is now expected to cost up to $128 billion.

Officials at the authority dismissed the investigation.

“This is yet another baseless attempt to manufacture controversy around America’s largest and most complex infrastructure project,” an authority spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The Authority has already addressed these recycled criticisms in its response to the FRA’s compliance review supported by facts, noting the ridership critiques are ‘nonsensical, cherrypicked and out-of-date, and therefore misleading.’”

President Donald Trump announced in February that his administration would investigate the project.

During Trump’s predecessor President Joe Biden’s final days in office, the project received $3.1 billion for the initial segment connecting Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield—the largest grant the program had received. The funding came from Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the rail construction has created 12,000 union jobs.

The cost to build the initial 171-mile stretch through central California has increased by about $8 billion.

Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) presides over a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 5, 2025. Comer has opened an investigation into California’s high-speed rail project. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Federal Railroad Administration, however, clawed back $4 billion in unspent federal funding in July after the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s responses to a compliance review were not adequate in addressing the administration’s concerns, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Gov. Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Federal dollars are not a blank check—they come with a promise to deliver results.”

The Merced-to-Bakersfield segment had a funding gap of at least $6.5 billion, of which $4 billion was promised by the Biden administration, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Inspector General.

Duffy said it was “time for this boondoggle to die.”

Weekend headlines have been taken over by more Trump administration house-cleaning and firings at the Pentagon, as late Friday it was reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed a general whose agency’s early intelligence report downplayed the destructive power of the Trump-ordered June strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse has been ousted from his role as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The official reason disclosed is “loss of confidence”. While the DIA is lesser known among the nation’s major intel agencies like the CIA or NSA, it coordinates all military intelligence among US armed forces, and is mostly staffed by civilians – but under DoD leadership.

Hegseth also removed Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, head of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL in charge of Naval Special Warfare Command, from their posts, according to officials.

While Gen. Kruse’s firing from the DIA chief seems retributive in nature, the reason for the dismissal of the Navy admirals remains unclear.

It further comes as the past week saw dozens of current and former national security personnel get their security clearances revoked. Trump admin critics have decried what they call a pattern of retribution against those seen as disloyal, and that it’s all politically motivated.

As for the circumstances surrounding the change in DIA leadership, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had following the 12-day war on Iran declared that US bunker-buster bombs and accompanying strikes had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

But a leaked DIA report in the immediate aftermath suggested the uranium enrichment program was still intact, contradicting Trump. CNN had been the first to report in late June info from leaked assessment as follows:

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

One unnamed defense official quoted in the report had made clear that centrifuges are largely “intact.” The unnamed person had described: “So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops.”

The growing list of firings under Hegseth:

Hegseth cleaning house at the Pentagon?

He has now sacked:

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Chief of Naval Operations
• Coast Guard Commandant
• Air Force Chief & Vice Chief of Staff
• Chief of the Naval Reserve
• NAVSPECWARCOM Commander
• DIA Director https://t.co/1YsG2IiqVp pic.twitter.com/sWTZQrCx9T

— RT (@RT_com) August 23, 2025

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but vigorously rejected the conclusions, describing it as mere raw and unreliable info that was in no way conclusive.

Trump had in the quick aftermath of the US bombing raid on Iran essentially declared mission accomplished and got Israel and Iran to abide by a ceasefire, which has held since. But Trump has used the narrative of having destroyed Iran’s nuclear program to claim that Tehran can no longer pose a nuclear threat, and that no further action is needed.