Chinese Hackers Broke Into NASA, Federal Reserve, DOJ & Senate: FBI Announces
The United States Department of Justice has on Wednesday announced US authorities thwarted a major state-sponsored hack which saw a temporary intrusion into NASA, the Federal Reserve, Senate, the DOJ, Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human services, along with four unnamed companies in the US and South Korea.
“Today we announced the disruption of a global botnet and hacking platform used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers to target U.S. critical infrastructure,” said FBI Director Kash Patel.
“These tools were used by PRC cyber actors to hide the origin of their attacks. Thanks to the work of FBI San Diego, FBI Cyber Division, and DOJ partners, we seized adversary infrastructure and shut these platforms down,” he added.
Domains utilized by two hacking platforms identified as “QScan” and “QTRouter” were seized by the DOJ in the large scale counter-cyberespionage operation.
Describing a pervasive botnet which was ultimately believed to be backed by Chinese state actors,The Wall Street Journal details that the “goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace, federal officials say.”
“The group exploited software vulnerabilities to launch cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, power companies and hospital systems, and operated a worldwide network of hacked devices—known as a botnet—to conduct its hacking campaigns, according to Brett Leatherman, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top cyber official,” WSJ continues.
As for the specific allegation that this had state backing, the DOJ press release states:
People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored group known as “QTFY,” employed by China-based Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, created and operated QScan and QTRouter.
The DOJ announcement additionally outlines efforts at concealment and ‘plausible deniability’ in the following:
QTRouter consists of these compromised IoT devices, as well as commercial proxy service devices and leased virtual private servers. QTRouter then serves as an “obfuscation network” – meaning it allows QTFY and other malicious cyber actors to conceal the PRC-origin of their computer intrusion activities because the malicious communications appear to originate from computers (such as those compromised by QScan) that are outside of the PRC and may even be local to the targeted networks. Because the seized domains were hard-coded into both the QScan and QTRouter malware and used for essential tasks such as communication and authentication, the court-authorized seizures made QScan and QTRouter inoperable.
Neither Beijing’s foreign ministry nor the Chinese embassy in Washington have officially responded to the allegations, and as has been the pattern in the past is likely to reject the US charge altogether.
Earlier this year Google was among those warning of imminent stepped-up Chinese and Russian targeting of US defense companies.
Google’s prior report seemed to preview some of the techniques on display in this latest hack. The report cited observations of “more China-nexus cyber espionage missions directly targeting defense and aerospace industry than from any other state-sponsored actors over the last two years.”
“But the hallmark of many operations has been their exploitation of edge devices to gain initial access,” it said, referring to hardware components positioned at the edge of a network. “We have also observed China-nexus threat groups leverage ORB networks for reconnaissance against defense industrial targets, which complicates detection and attribution.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is escalating the fight against what he calls discriminatory religious facilities at two of the state’s busiest airports.
After DFW Airport scrapped plans for more Islamic ablution stations under pressure, Abbott has referred both Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport to the U.S. Department of Justice, demanding investigation and corrective action over existing foot-washing stations and an adjoining prayer room.
“These ablution stations single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion,” Abbott said. “They are not interfaith chapels open to all. They exist to benefit the Muslim population alone. Government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over all others.”
? JUST IN: TX Gov. Greg Abbott has referred Islamic foot washing stations at Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston Airports to the DOJ for INVESTIGATION and ENFORCEMENT
In his letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, Abbott noted that DFW has two such stations already operating and that IAH installed one facility plus an interconnecting prayer room stocked with copies of the Quran, prayer rugs, prayer beads, and a turbah.
He previously referred the airports to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, directed a review of state grants for possible revocation, and warned that if the facilities sit on city-owned property, Texas will pursue litigation for religious discrimination at taxpayer-funded sites.
“Airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms,” Abbott wrote. DFW abandoned plans for additional stations in Terminal D after the initial threat. Airport officials said they accelerated review due to public attention and determined the anticipated benefits might not materialize.
?Here Are The Ritual Muslim Foot Washing Stations Inside the Dallas Ft. Worth Airport…
Yes, they are real, this is not fake news.
I’m at DFW right now and went to the interfaith chapel near Gate D40. Two massive showers greet you when you enter the small chapel. But they’re… pic.twitter.com/xkpXNaauOl
Houston Mayor John Whitmire defended the IAH facilities, saying they are open to all travelers regardless of faith and were funded by fees from international airlines rather than direct taxpayer grants.
Critics of Abbott’s move, including the Texas chapter of CAIR, called it an anti-Muslim political stunt. Abbott and Texas leaders frame the issue differently: government-owned airports receiving public and federal funds cannot create spaces designed around one faith’s ritual requirements while ignoring others.
This latest action fits a clear pattern of pushback against what many Texans see as the steady advance of parallel Islamic institutions and preferential accommodations across the state.
Residents in McKinney recently packed City Hall and voiced fierce opposition as the council approved a major expansion for the McKinney Islamic Association. The 5.5-acre site plan includes a large sanctuary, classroom building, and gym.
More than 150 speakers signed up for the marathon session that stretched past midnight. An Iranian Christian refugee told the council, “I’m a Sharia law survivor from Iran, and I’m here to tell you, this is a dangerous ideology you’re allowing in the country.”
U.S. Rep. Keith Self warned of risks including child marriage and honor killings under political Islam, stating the freedom to choose one’s faith “does not exist in political Islam.” The council still voted 7-0 to approve after staff confirmed the plan met zoning rules.
Public schools have also drawn outrage. Students from Humble ISD’s Kingwood High School and Atascocita High School were bused to Centro Islamico, operated by IslamInSpanish in the Houston area, so they could “experience Islam.”
The visit included a tour, halal lunch, observation of prayer, and presentations. Parents and online commentators noted the absence of similar taxpayer-funded trips to churches or other houses of worship, calling the episode one-sided indoctrination.
Congressman Keith Self has repeatedly highlighted existing Muslim-only enclaves operating as parallel societies. He pointed to the East Plano Islamic Center, which has functioned for years adjacent to police facilities, and a similar pattern in Irving.
“Sharia is alive, well, and operating in Plano, Texas,” Self said. “This is not a hypothetical or future threat. It is here, now and operational.”
NEW: ‘Muslim City’ in Texas gets legal win after a judge ordered that the state must comply with developers.
The East Plano Islamic Community (EPIC), which has now been rebranded to The Meadow, will feature 1,000 homes, a mosque, schools, and more.
He described these as de facto Sharia enclaves situated next to the law enforcement facilities meant to protect communities, calling the proximity a form of intimidation.
Texas authorities have also moved against unauthorized institutions. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, at Abbott’s direction, issued a cease-and-desist order to Texas American Muslim University (TexAM) in the Dallas area.
The school was operating without required state approval, marketing degree programs that included mandatory Islamic studies courses, and using the term “university” illegally.
Abbott stated Texas will not allow illegal educational institutions to operate and that legal action would follow noncompliance.
Taxpayer-funded venues have faced similar scrutiny. Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark in Grand Prairie, built with public sales tax money, advertised a private Eid event initially promoted as “Muslim only,” complete with modest dress codes, halal options, and a prayer room.
After backlash the language was softened, but the episode reinforced concerns that public facilities were being reserved for exclusive religious use.
Taken together, the airport ablution stations, school field trips, city council approvals, unauthorized schools, exclusive events, and residential developments form a consistent picture.
Abbott’s referral of the airports to the DOJ is the latest concrete step to enforce the principle that government facilities and public money cannot favor one religion. Texas under Abbott continues to treat equal application of the law as non-negotiable, rejecting special privileges that create two-tier systems on public property.
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Nvidia Rises After Solid Earnings, Reversing Margin Concerns As Company Guides To 70% 2028 Revenue Growth
Update (5:10pm): NVDA stock is very volatile, and after sliding 3% at first on solid earnings but weak margin guidance, the stock has since recovered and is up over 5% as the earnings call begins, on the following comments from Jensen Huang:
*NVIDIA CFO SAYS SEEING DEMAND ACCELERATION EVEN AT OUR SCALE
*NVIDIA CFO SAYS REVENUE TO GROW ABOUT 70% IN FISCAL 2028
*NVIDIA CFO SAYS SEEING DEMAND ACCELERATION EVEN AT OUR SCALE
As Bloomberg notes, Amazon’s commitment to use a lot more Nvidia products and a strong prediction for growth in revenue of about 70%, well above whispers of about 40-50%, next year has shoved aside the naysayers. The 2028 guidance, which came unexpectedly and was intended precisely the spark a buying spree in the stock, did just that, and has pushed the shares about 5% after hours.
* * *
Earlier:
In our preview of NVDA earnings we said that “Nvidia will beat FQ2 (July) revenue estimates by approximately $3-4 billion, with revenue potentially reaching $94-95 bn. The stock, however, will not respond to the beat…. recall revenue guidance has beaten Street consensus by an average of 4% over the past four quarters, while the stock has traded down 3%/5% on average over the subsequent 7/30 days.” It seems we were we right: despite blowout beats on the top and bottom line, the stock is sliding after hours, in what will be the 6th of the past 7 earnings reports the stock has tumbled despite beating bigly.
Here is what NVDA just reported for Q2:
Adjusted EPS $2.22, beating est $2.09
Revenue $96.22 billion, beating estimates of $92.38 billion
Data center revenue $89.02 billion, beating estimate $85.86 billion
Adjusted operating income $63.96 billion, beating estimate $61.19 billion
While revenue numbers were impressive, don’t forget the circular financing. Almost half of the company’s record $96BN in revenue, or $40.3 BN, came from hyperscaler customers who can’t fund their own buildout without outside capital, and without Nvidia handing them cash to buy its own products. As we have extensively reported, Nvidia sells the chips and simultaneously guarantees the leases and invests in the builders so the orders keep coming, helping create a massive $3 trillion off-balance sheet funding hold. Two of the companies which are supposed to generate revenue in the AI ecosystem, OpenAI and Anthropic, both lost gobs of money last year. Both are heading to IPO to raise more cash to keep buying.
Looking ahead, the company shared the following Q3 Guidance
Revenue $108 billion (+/- 2%), beating estimate of $104 billion; the company also said it does not assume any Data Center compute revenue from China in its outlook.
Gross Margin 73.5-74.5%, missing estimates of 75%
GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $9.2 billion and $9.0 billion, respectively.
While the guidance was solid, and well above the sellside, it may not have been solid enough with some buysiders throwing around numbers as high as $109 billion.
Commenting on the quarter, CEO Jensen Huang said that “AI has reached its inflection point. It’s doing useful work. Its tokens are productive and profitable. Now, compute is revenue. And demand is accelerating. This time last year, one lab alone was driving the buildout; today, we have a golden age of new AI labs and startups, multiple frontier labs scaling in parallel, a thriving open-model ecosystem and physical AI coming online — with strong momentum across the U.S. and around the world. The AI infrastructure buildout is at full steam. Vera Rubin, now in full production, was built to power exactly this moment.”
Nvidia’s latest quarter was still about the Blackwell Ultra. The company said its 117% jump in Data Center revenue was driven by the ramp of Blackwell Ultra infrastructure. The extremely expensive Vera Rubin is next (recall “Nvidia’s Vera Rubin Rack Will Cost $7.8MM: Here’s What’s In It“). Nvidia built inventory to prepare for Rubin’s introduction in the fiscal third quarter, while saying the new platform is now ramping into full production. That means the $108 billion revenue outlook Nvidia just gave investors is the first quarter where Rubin should begin contributing meaningfully to sales.
The other problem is that Vera Rubin needs massive amounts of memory at a time when memory prices, unlike a year ago, are absolutely stratospheric.
Which bring us to the next point: Nvidia forecast a margin between 73.5% and 74.5%, versus analyst estimates of about 75% and estimates as high as 76.5%. Needless to say, that won’t help worries about increasing component costs, especially after the company is raising prices on many of its customers.
To be sure, there is a growing focus on Nvidia’s gross margin, which is where competition is starting to manifest in the form of more aggressive pricing cuts. Recall that Nvidia’s recently told customers its prices are going up because of costs; so the questions about whether it can maintain the 75% margin level it’s guided to will continue.
Another concern, and a reason why the stock is dumping: Nvidia’s future supply commitments have more than doubled in a single quarter, jumping to $279 billion from $119 billion. The reason, as Bloomberg notes, is striking: Nvidia says the increase is primarily related to securing memory. These aren’t costs already incurred, but commitments to suppliers to lock in the components and capacity needed to meet AI demand over the next several years. Nvidia has $92 billion committed for the rest of this fiscal year, $87 billion for FY28 and $88 billion for FY29
And while most concerns focus on the income and cash flow statement, according to Vital Knowledge, this is going to be the most talked about part of the Nvidia report: “Accounts receivable was $63.1B with 60 days sales outstanding (DSO), up from 45 days sequentially, due to extended payment terms on large, multi-quarter agreements with certain investment-grade customers.“
It appears that we may not even get to the off balance sheet bubble (discussed overnight): net working capital alone is starting to be a huge issue for the company and its clients.
China also remains a giant question mark for Nvidia. There have been signs that Beijing is allowing limited purchases of its chips by Chinese companies. That’s after the Asian nation had earlier retaliated against Washington’s restrictions with its own soft of imports of US technology. Nvidia’s Huang was able to get Washington to ease some restrictions on exports, in the form of limited licenses to some companies in China willing to take older Nvidia products.
The net effect persists: Nvidia is largely locked out of the biggest market for semiconductors, a country that’s actively trying to foster competition for its products, and judging by recent performance from open-weight models, is succeeding.
And lets not forget growing competition: OpenAI is just one of a growing group of customers and rivals who are touting their own chip efforts and claiming parity or performance leads over Nvidia’s offerings. Until there’s enough supply to fill every order, that remains a moot point. But there are growing concerns that Nvidia’s utter dominance is facing more serious challenges. As reported earlier, OpenAI said its new Jalapeño processor outperformed Blackwell systems in two areas in its tests. So does specialized AI compute eventually chip away at Nvidia’s dominance, or does explosive growth in overall compute demand leave room for everyone?
Putting it all together, despite another blowout quarter, the stock is once again down on results in what is becoming a habit…
… and it is only a matter of time before increasingly impatient investors start asking just what will it take for the stock to actually go up on earnings, for once.
This is a lightly edited transcript of an Aug. 24 segment of the “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” podcast.
Let’s have a periodic check on the status of the midterms that we’re now less than 80 days away from. The Democrats are riding high. They feel that historical trends, i.e., 39 out of the last 41 midterms, the party in the White House loses seats, and there’s not very many seats Republicans can afford to lose, and they may lose the House and Senate.
They’re already, I guess you’d call it, measuring their drapes, but in the sense that they’re already explaining how they’re going to go after the Trump family, the Trump family associates, cryptocurrency concerns, any hangers-on, people going to the Middle East and investing. They’re gonna open it wide open.
These are the people, of course, who never investigated the Biden family or Hunter Biden. That’s no excuse if there’s culpability, but nonetheless, you can count on a two-year investigation of Donald Trump and a never-ending impeachment inquiry, and the end of the MAGA agenda should he lose the House and the Senate.
Donald Trump is strangely confident. He now has finally hit on a strategy that he feels will work. Earlier, I called it the “Anaconda Strategy,” the idea that he is squeezing a debilitated Iran. In other words, the kinetic 40 days of bombing have left the nuclear military-industrial complex in shambles.
And this time, he’s not just blockading, he’s not just having an embargo on goods. He is not just freezing the bank accounts of Iranian grandees. He’s not just debanking the entire country. He’s going to third parties and saying, “You and China and Russia and Europe have been trading with this country even while we were bearing the burden of defanging a potential nuclear renegade nation, and we’re going to isolate you. We’re not gonna do business with you if you do business with Iran.”
And the Iranians now are crying foul. They’re saying we’re colonialists. But what I’m getting at, after all that military damage from Feb. 28 for the next 40 days, and after all the blockades, they’re not able to withstand a renewed squeezing.
And so, time is actually on our side.
The second part of this strategy is Donald Trump has now put the war on the back burner. He is saying that we don’t need to have ground troops. We might not even go in and bomb them again unless they egregiously attack an ally of ours or one of our carriers or ships.
We have managed it now. The strait is mostly open, and whatever the status of the nuclear stockpile or enriched uranium of the theocracy, it’s pretty clear they can’t get at it.
Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah don’t seem to be getting money. They don’t seem to have enough rockets to threaten the Gulf States or Israel, at least to get through their missile defenses.
And so, we’re just going to concentrate, Trump thinks, on the economy.
So, what he is doing now is he and JD Vance are barnstorming the country, and they’re starting to make headway. They’re not worried about the polls that show a generic 7 percent Democratic advantage and betting odds and polls that say they’re gonna lose the House because they looked at the recent primaries.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the Democratic senatorial seat in Michigan, was polling ahead 10 points, and he scarcely won by a point and a half.
Francesca Hong, the Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor, was polling ahead 10 or 15 or 20 points. She lost and lost handily.
Mr. [Alexander] Vindman, who was running for Senate in Florida, was polling ahead. He lost to Ms. [Angie] Nixon, a democratic socialist.
So, what I’m getting at is the polls are worthless. And what we need to look at is what the status is right now.
The war is starting to wane. If it should end or if the Iranians crack in the next 60 to 70 days, that would be a spectacular achievement that Donald Trump – you know, we’ve tragically lost 17 Americans – but at a tolerable cost in blood and treasure, he ended a 50-year problem that seven presidents said was existential.
You could not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and the pressure that he’s put on them and the damage he’s inflicted would probably, in the next year or two, prompt a renewal of internal opposition against a theocracy that is bleeding.
The second thing to remember very carefully is, as I said earlier, the redistricting, the red state redistricting and the Supreme Court prohibition on racial gerrymandering might give him an additional four or five seats.
But the most important developments are money and the agenda of the new Democratic Party.
Very quickly, Donald Trump has got a war chest of about $400 million, and he’s now going to use it.
He says he’s going to use it all in his political action committees to help save the Republicans in the midterms.
Elon Musk said that he is going to match dollar for dollar the Democratic oligarchic class that if they start to donate in great amounts to Democratic candidates.
So, the money issue probably favors also, like, the redistricting and maybe the course of the Iran war that could wane and be not an issue.
But the most important thing to conclude is the Democratic Party. No one thought that the Democratic socialists would ever try to absorb and even seem to succeed in absorbing the Democratic Party. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, they’ve all said they have no problem with the Democratic socialists.
It’s a big tent party, and they’re going to help them win their seats.
But the problem is, once you have the money and the effort and the attention, and you show what the democratic socialists are, like, defunding the Pentagon, defunding the police, opening the border, mass amnesties, warring on fossil fuels, isolationist foreign policy, the transgender issue reopened with biological men now by statute free to compete in women’s sports. I could go on and on.
They even want to destroy the Senate and the Electoral College, not to mention packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, and bringing in new seats in the Senate by admitting new blue states such as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
And so, what I’m getting at is, the more we learn about the democratic socialists, and the more that the Democratic Party feels they’ve already taken over the apparatus of the party and they’re going to join them, or at least they’re not going to oppose them, they’re gonna be culpable or responsible for what these people say.
And they’re saying all sorts of stuff, not just anti-Semitic venom, not just anti-Israel venom, but questioning the very legitimacy of the United States government, the way that our Founders created a legislative, judicial, and executive branch, the Declaration of Independence. Our entire traditions, they’re saying, are flawed at their origins.
They got worse during our maturity, and now they’re god-awful right now. That’s not a winning message.
So, the midterms are very much up in the air.
Contrary to historical precedent, there’s still a chance that the Republicans can save both the Senate and the House.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.
Thirty U.S. academic institutions have until Aug. 31 to examine specified foreign research ties or risk losing eligibility for future federal research funding.
Seven days after the Pentagon ordered the reviews, an Air Force-affiliated institute published a study cataloging 204 interactions involving U.S. institutions and laboratories at the center of China’s defense research system.
The Aug. 24 study by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) found more U.S. institution-level interactions with China’s Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories than those involving institutions from any other country.
CASI describes the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories as China’s highest level national laboratory network for military research. The contacts it identified ranged from academic visits and conferences to coauthored technical research and formal joint laboratories in fields including aero-engines, underwater sensing, hyperspectral target detection, advanced communications, and aerospace materials.
CASI described interactions between Western researchers and Chinese military laboratories as “at the very least problematic,” saying even seemingly benign exchanges could give Chinese defense researchers access to knowledge and technology useful to the People’s Liberation Army.
CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney told The Epoch Times that institutional collaborations-including joint laboratories, long-term partnerships, and mutual study or training agreements-were the most concerning because they represented sustained cooperation rather than one-off encounters.
The Pentagon’s Aug. 17 order directs 30 U.S. institutions to review academic, financial, and research relationships with foreign entities of concern and report what action they have taken by Aug. 31.
The Pentagon did not publicly identify the schools. According to a list DefenseScoop obtained from a U.S. official, Harvard University, MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, Duke University, Penn State, the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and the University of Southern California are among institutions on that list that also appear in CASI’s records.
The Pentagon has not said that the relationships identified by CASI prompted the Aug. 17 notices.
Purdue and Beihang Built Joint Research Labs
In 2011, Purdue and Beihang formally established the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Energy Systems and the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Low Emissions Combustion.
Then-Purdue President France Córdova and Beihang President Huai Jinpeng signed the agreements.
The energy laboratory paired Purdue’s computational modeling with Beihang’s experimental capabilities. The combustion laboratory focused on low emission gas turbine combustors used in aircraft and power generation.
Beihang records also describe the two laboratories as formal joint research arrangements and say the universities discussed broader scientific research, teaching, and faculty and student exchanges.
Beihang later described the combustion laboratory within a research program that also undertook Chinese National Defense 973 projects, a state-backed basic research program supporting its defense science and technology.
CASI identified Beihang’s thermal engineering department-which oversees a Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory for aero-engine aerodynamics and thermodynamics-as having established a joint combustion research team with Purdue.
Beihang is now on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list of foreign institutions subject to tighter research security restrictions.
Harvard Listed by Chinese Defense University as Collaborator
The Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), one of China’s leading defense linked universities, currently lists Harvard among the international collaborators of its Center for Composite Materials and Structure.
The center works on aerospace structures, smart and composite materials, sensors, structural health monitoring, multifunctional nanocomposites, and related technologies, according to its research description.
CASI also cites an earlier HIT description saying its composite materials research institute had established an overseas joint laboratory with Harvard and maintained long-term exchanges and cooperation with other foreign universities.
HIT has been on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 research security list since at least fiscal 2022 and was added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List in June 2020 over its alleged efforts to use U.S. technology for Chinese missile programs.
Research Reached Underwater and Missile Fields
The links also extended into published technical research.
In 2017, researchers affiliated with the University of Houston and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University joined researchers from Harbin Engineering University on a study of underwater wireless sensor networks.
The paper, published in Sensors, developed a method for accessing data through an underwater sensor network.
The authors included Houbing Song, then affiliated with Embry-Riddle; Albert M. K. Cheng of the University of Houston; and Xuefei Ma, who was affiliated with both Harbin Engineering University’s College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering and its National Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Science and Technology.
The author-contribution statement credits the U.S.-based researchers with experimental, analytical, and research work. Funding listed in the paper came from Chinese sources, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, basic-research projects, and the China Scholarship Council.
CASI classified the work as research collaboration involving a Chinese defense laboratory in underwater acoustics.
Another collaboration reached into hyperspectral target detection.
A 2021 study coauthored by Ying Qu, listed with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a neural-network method for identifying anomalous targets in hyperspectral images.
One of Qu’s coauthors was Xuemei Liu of Beijing’s Space Vehicle Survival Technology and Effectiveness Evaluation Laboratory.
Researchers from that laboratory have separately published work on missile trajectory tracking, missile attack-and-defense simulations, and radar-seeker countermeasures.
CASI said the Beijing laboratory appears closely affiliated with a Chinese defense laboratory involved in ballistic-missile penetration technology.
Harbin Engineering University, like Beihang and HIT, is on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.
Advanced Communications Contacts Continued Into 2025
Mulvaney said conference participation could also be consequential because of how common it is and how little scrutiny it has received compared with formal research collaboration.
Some contacts cataloged by CASI are more recent.
University of Houston professor Zhu Han delivered keynote speeches at the International Conference on Communication Software and Networks in China in both 2024 and 2025.
His 2024 keynote focused on federated learning and multi-access edge computing, technologies used to distribute artificial intelligence processing across communications networks and connected devices.
The conference listed China’s National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Space Security among its technical sponsors.
Han returned as a keynote speaker at the 2025 conference, which again listed the laboratory among its sponsors.
CASI traces the laboratory to a predecessor known as the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Communications Countermeasures Technology.
The 2025 keynote roster also included Nian Fushun, identified by organizers as a chief scientist of test instruments at China Electronics Technology Group Corp. and its 41st Research Institute.
China Electronics Technology Group is a state-owned defense electronics conglomerate involved in radar, communications, electronic warfare, and other military technologies.
Han’s University of Houston profile lists wireless networking, security, and data analysis among his research interests.
Pentagon Restrictions Take Effect
Beginning in fiscal 2026, Pentagon funds cannot be used for fundamental research involving collaboration with institutions on the department’s Section 1286 list.
The restriction applies to grants, contracts, and other assistance to higher education institutions and bars Pentagon funded fundamental research from collaborating with, or using equipment from, listed entities. It also extends to employees of those institutions.
Beihang University, Harbin Engineering University, and Harbin Institute of Technology-the Chinese universities involved in several of the relationships identified by CASI-are on the list.
The 30 U.S. institutions notified this month must report their findings and any mitigation measures to the Pentagon by Aug. 31.
The U.S. Secret Service confirmed on Aug. 25 it is aware of a video aired by Iranian state-run media that appears to threaten President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, and places a $10 million bounty on him.
“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” spokesman Nate Herring told The Epoch Times in an email. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”
The three-minute video that first aired Aug. 24 alleges Trump’s 20-year-old son is being monitored.
The video, titled “Where and how should we kill Barron Trump?” was produced by media entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and broadcast on Channel 3 of Iranian state television.
The clip shows the location of the university he attends, along with maps of the school. It also depicts security vehicles that drive him around. The clips also allege Barron Trump’s movements have been monitored.
The Epoch Times reached out to the university about the video and didn’t immediately receive a response about whether any additional security measures have been taken.
The video also claims Barron Trump communicates through voice-to-text on a gaming platform and mentions Trump Tower, where he is known to stay.
The broadcast also claims Barron Trump’s gaming accounts have been located and allegedly names a couple of his friends.
Statements in the video appeared to taunt and intentionally terrorize Barron Trump and the president’s family. The Epoch Times has not been able to verify whether claims made in it are legitimate.
This is the second broadcast by the Iranian regime to threaten Barron Trump.
An IRGC-affiliated news agency also broadcast a similar video in July threatening First Lady Melania Trump. It claimed to have information on her security detail, her movements and alleged security vulnerabilities.
At the end of the July video, the narrator says: “This is just the beginning. Barron Trump, wait for us.”
The video that was broadcast this week ends with the same statement.
Since the start of the war against Iran, and the assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have issued several articles and statements threatening the lives of President Trump and his family members.
The White House referred questions about the threats against the Trump family to the Secret Service.
Coinbase CEO Considers Joining California Exodus Over “Deeply Un-American” Wealth Tax Proposal
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong could be the next Silicon Valley billionaire to flee California over a union-backed, draconian wealth tax scheme that critics slam as a radical wealth grab.
“I think it’s deeply un-American to seize people’s assets. It might be unconstitutional,” Armstrong, who has an estimated net worth of $8.8 billion, said of the proposal during an interview on the “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
“It’s against my values, I would say. I think it’s bad for the state and for America. So we’re considering any and all options basically at this point to be, in terms of relocation,” the crypto executive added.
This week on the Katie Miller Podcast, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong breaks down crypto, meme coins, and the explosive future of AI in digital assets.
You will see a side of the CEO you have never seen before: his passion for longevity plus the incredible story of how he met his… pic.twitter.com/JxdDittltm
— The Katie Miller Podcast (@katiemillerpod) August 25, 2026
While Coinbase has maintained that it is a remote-first operation, it signed a lease for 150,000 square feet of San Francisco office space in May. That came just four years after it paid $25 million to break its previous office lease in the same city, the New York Post reports.
If the wealth tax is approved by voters, the levy would hit anyone who lived in California as of Jan. 1 this year and holds a net worth of $1 billion or more by year’s end, excluding certain assets like directly owned real estate.
The tax has split Democrat ranks wide open, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra both publicly opposing it. The measure originated with a major healthcare union, the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which claims it would raise $100 billion to offset what it calls deep healthcare funding cuts under the Trump administration. Unsurprisingly, far-left lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, have cheered it on.
The proposal has already reverberated through Silicon Valley, where several high-profile figures have established residency elsewhere. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have moved to Florida, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a $150 million mansion in Miami. Even Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, prominent Democrat donor, and longtime buddy of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has publicly criticized the proposal, describing California’s wealth tax as a “horrendous idea” that would hasten the departure of tech founders and executives from the state.
In May, one of the co-authors of California’s controversial tax appeared to suggest that the levy could extend beyond a single imposition. Marxist economics professor Emmanuel Saez, who hails from France, made the comment during a heated debate against economist Arthur Laffer at the University of California, Berkeley.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax. Because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once,” Saez said. “Even then, maybe some of them were expecting something like this. So, it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”
Putin To Escalate Ukraine War In Wake Of CIA Chief’s Visit, Report Speculates
Update1505ET: In the wake of yesterday’s unusual visit by the Director of the CIA to Moscow for mystery 2-hour talks, Bloomberg says that President Putin is preparing for a major escalate against Ukraine:
Russia is preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after concluding that negotiations for a peace deal have reached a dead end, according to three people close to the Kremlin.
For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
While the original Bloomberg TV reporting appears just speculation based on what already seemed the current trend on the ground, oil had climbed back on the news:
* * *
An IRGC spokesman has announced Wednesday that Iran and Oman have reached agreements on their share of the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, according toTasnim news agency. So essentially the “fee” scheme has been set. There’s talk of reopening the strait on an “interim” basis, Bloomberg says.
“We entered into negotiations with Oman about a month ago and have reached results that have been accepted by both sides,” the official said. “Agreements have been reached on the share of each country in the waters of the strait and the share of Iran and Oman in its revenues,” the statement continued, while also alleging that negotiations were previously delayed only due to the US obstructing negotiations.
Tehran is still insisting on the United States lifting its naval blockade of the country’s ports. However, it seems that for now at least Tehran is open to some level of negotiations, or at least seems content to see where this current period of rare calm leads.
This is evident in the latest words of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who argued Wednesday that any negotiations with the US don’t equate to retreat from Iran’s demands.
“Negotiation, in my view, has neither intrinsic value nor is it a taboo; it is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil,” he wrote in a letter responding to more hardline critics, IRNA reports.
He insisted this does not mean abandoning resistance to US-Israeli aggression. “If necessary, dialogue, too, according to this logic, is the same arena of struggle and resistance; neither a replacement for it nor a sign of retreat from it,” he said.
Ghaliban further suggested this is being done by the Islamic Republic from position of strength while holding on to the nation’s “dignity, wisdom and interests.”
Meanwhile, it seems Washington is also in no mood to rush back into military action, following the Monday announcement by Scott Bessent of the Economic D-Day action against Iran, which is to including secondary sanctions on any country found not complying.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told several foreign officials in recent days that “for the time being” the US is not planning to initiate any new strikes against Iran, but instead the focus is on other means of pressure, especially the sanctions initiative, Axios reports. According to more:
The U.S. official said that while Rubio made clear that the U.S. isn’t planning a return to major combat operations, he didn’t rule out strikes if Iran attacks first.
Another U.S. official said the clearing of mines from the Strait of Hormuz by the U.S. Navy is a watershed moment in the war, largely neutralizing one of Iran’s main sources of leverage.
Also on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi confirmed their further work on the “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a joint statement.
State television has indicated Iran and Oman agreed that the new transit corridor would enter through Iranian territorial waters, with part of the exit route also passing through them. The corridor will span roughly seven miles.
On this and other headlines, oil prices continue to fall…
Oil extends declines as Iran, Oman continue finalizing talks to reopen Hormuz
Satellite image shows surge in Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil loadings
A busy day in the Gulf of Oman, where there are at least fifteen sets of STS transfer sessions taking place. We count 25 million barrels of crude oil; plus some refined products. The oil originates from almost every country in the region, minus Iran.#OOTT#IranWar#Tankerspic.twitter.com/TAba26mJiW
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) August 25, 2026
The day prior, on Tuesday, President Trump hinted that military options are still on the table. While announcing the new claim that all mines had been detonated or removed from international waters of the Strait of Hormuz, he said the US Space Force was watching “every square inch” of the Strait, and that “There is a Zero Tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect.” But Iran is stillasserting that the strait remains “closed”.
WTI Rises After Big Product Draws, Tiny Crude Build, SPR Nears ‘Tank Bottoms’
Oil prices extended their declines for a third straight day after the US plan to ramp up economic pressure on Iran spared the country’s trading partners from harsher measures for now, while mediators said they were continuing efforts to end the conflict.
“There was a lot of buildup around the announcement but what we got was more a warning about where policy is heading than an immediate shock to physical supply,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Chicago-based Karobaar Capital LP. “Until secondary sanctions start changing who can buy, ship or even finance Iranian crude, I don’t think traders have much reason to add another geopolitical premium.”
Oman and Iran said the countries’ foreign ministers discussed an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary framework.
Negotiations between the two countries will continue “with a view to agreeing on a permanent navigational corridor and future administration of the strait,” the joint statement said.
While positive, an agreement between Oman and Iran wouldn’t result in oil flows through the strait returning to prewar levels, ING analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said.
“We would likely need to see the U.S. lift its blockade on Iranian ports and ease sanctions on Iran before we see any move towards normalization.”
All eyes on domestic supply (and demand) for the next tactical leg…
API
Crude +4.2mm
Cushing +1.0mm
Gasoline -3.2mm
Distillates -459k
DOE
Crude +95k (+500k exp)
Cushing +1.18mm
Gasoline -2.54mm
Distillates -2.23mm
Crude stocks rose for the 4th straight week (but it was a tiny 95k increase) while Cushing saw a modest build off tank bottoms. Product inventories saw large drawdowns..
The Trump admin drained another 3.6mm barrels from the SPR to 289.7 million barrels (1983 lows), approaching the minimum operational level for storage facilities, which ranges between 250 and 300 million barrels.
The combination of a tiny commercial crude build and sizable SPR drain created the biggest net crude drawdown in over a month…
Cushing stocks remain very near ‘tank bottoms’
Distillates stocks fell back near 25 year lows and the lowest seasonally on record…
US crude imports from Saudi Arabia picked up recently (but remain well below peak war levels). Crude exports fell below 4 million barrels a day, a threshold closely watched by the market to gauge demand.
US Crude production remains near record highs and while the rig count dipped last week, it is still trending higher overall…
Refining utilization rates are at the highest seasonal level since 1998. That is, in part, due to a shrinking US refining fleet in recent years. But it’s also evidence of how hard fuel-makers are running their plants right now to capture wide margins. They plan to keep that up into the fall, with some companies even deferring maintenance.
WTI was hovering around $81.50 (off the overnight lows) ahead of the official data (down from almost $88 last week)…
Crude is still up about 50% this year as the war – now in its sixth month – continues to disrupt the shipping of crude and refined fuels out of the Middle East.
The impact has been particularly acute in fuel markets, which have also faced a hit from Ukrainian attacks on Russian refiners. That’s helped push premiums over crude to stratospheric levels (but the crack spread is starting to decline)…
At the same time, large volumes of crude supplies continue to transit Hormuz with their satellite signals turned off.
Those volumes are in millions of barrels a day and have helped generally keep a lid on prices that had been expected to soar at the outset of the conflict.
Terrifying Video Captures ‘Day After Tomorrow’-Like Flood Swallowing Entire China-Nepal Border Checkpoint
At least 31 people were confirmed dead, and hundreds of tourists and travelers remained missing after a catastrophic flash flood tore through Nepal’s border region with Tibet.
This image helps explain what happened along the Nepal–Tibet border. According to reports, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake on the Tibetan side triggered a massive ice avalanche, which then led to the flash flooding of the Bhotekoshi River in Nepal. Around 1,000 people are missing, and… pic.twitter.com/2n46czGNoB
The South China Morning Post shared horrifying security-camera footage circulating online that appeared to show people fleeing as a giant wall of water, mud, and debris crashed through a checkpoint on the China-Nepal border.
A landslide at the China-Nepal border has hit a key checkpoint with Tibet, resulting in “major casualties”, according to state media and footage shared online. pic.twitter.com/rc7teWCa2r
SCMP cited Chinese state media outlets that said the flash flood struck the border area around 0900 local time before spilling into Gyirong County in Tibet, causing what authorities described as “major casualties and missing persons” at the border checkpoint.
More from SCMP:
In Nepal, 384 tourists and travelers were missing after the landslide, including 93 Nepalese and 291 foreigners, according to the Nepal Tourism Board.
The board said the missing foreigners included citizens from India, Australia, the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands. The nationalities of 111 individuals had yet to be confirmed.
Other dramatic footage:
🇳🇵 🇨🇳 Massive flood sweeps through northern Nepal
Massive flooding has killed several people in Nepal as Chinese state media reported “major casualties” from a mudslide at a Tibet trade hub on China’s side of the nations’ shared border. pic.twitter.com/NaCZrQ3qrP
— Kiran Joshi ( Follow Back 100%) Live #Ukraine (@Kiranjoshi900) August 26, 2026
Flash floods have swept away entire villages in Nepal’s Rasuwa area, killing at least nine people. Local reports say an earthquake triggered an avalanche that caused the flooding. The Nepal Tourism Board says 291 foreign nationals, including at least 105 Indian tourists, are… pic.twitter.com/OY7Pe6FLbv
The US Embassy in Nepal responded to the natural disaster on X, saying it was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life caused by the flood. “We extend our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and our thoughts are with all those affected by this disaster.”
