WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities have arrested 14 men in a secret, members-only child pornography website that involved 251 children, mostly boys, in five countries, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Some of the men assumed female online personas to contact the children, who ranged in age from three to 17 years, on popular social networks, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Eleven of the men charged with running the website, which had more than 27,000 subscribers, were from Louisiana, the officials said at a news conference. All were in custody.
The 251 victims, who have been identified and contacted by authorities, were located in 39 U.S. states. The majority were between 13 and 15 and all, but a handful, were boys.
Authorities said 23 victims were identified in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.
"Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child-exploitation investigation," said Daniel Ragsdale, the ICE deputy director.
The network was identified after an item was sent through the U.S. Postal Service to a child, said James Kilpatrick, a program manager for the ICE Cyber Crime Center.
The underground website was a hidden service board on the Tor network of Darknet, investigators said, referring to a hidden online network sometimes used for illicit activities.
There are more than 300 investigations open in the United States and abroad into some of the website's subscribers, investigators said.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson emphasized the importance of educating youths about the dangers of Internet use.
"The fact is that many other children are still in danger," Johnson told reporters.
The men were charged with conspiracy to operate a child exploitation enterprise.
The website's main administrator, Jonathan Johnson, 27, of Abita Springs, Louisiana, faces 20 years to life in prison, said Kenneth Allen Polite, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Ret. U.S. Army Maj. Mike Lyons on Thursday told CNN that a recent Russian attempt to show off its military prowess has massively backfired.
While discussing Russia's attempt to seize control of parts of eastern Ukraine, Lyons zeroed in on a propaganda video put out by the Russian defense ministry that shows a strike against Ukrainian howitzers in the Donbas region.
"You look at this video, it is supposed to show Russian competence, it shows the absolute opposite," he said. "If you start it from the beginning here, this is a drone attacking an M777 howitzer here, coming in from the west here. That is not the right way to attack that. They could have attacked that, trucks on the other side. This -- the howitzers are retreating into a troop line here, where, again, according to the Russian propaganda film, that they were attacked."
However, Lyons pointed out that the propaganda film was deceptively edited together to make it appear that the retreating howitzers ran right into a Russian ambush, when the reality is that footage was "stitched together" with other war footage.
On Thursday, writing for The Daily Beast, opinion editor Anthony Fisher tore into far-right filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza's latest project, "2000 Mules," which alleges with no evidence whatsoever that hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally collected by "ballot mules" in the 2020 presidential election.
"Surveillance footage of people taking selfies after dropping their votes in dropboxes is presented as 'A-ha!' evidence — while ignoring the fact that people taking voter selfies was a mundanely common thing to do in 2020 (and for quite a few years prior)," wrote Fisher. "Video clips of people dropping off a few ballots are presented as unimpeachable evidence of voter fraud, even though dropping ballots for family members was also common. And despite the repeated claims by the 'experts' that they’ve tracked literally thousands of vote-dropping 'mules' — not a single one of these supposed professional voter fraud foot soldiers is shown on screen making more than one drop."
As Fisher noted, even D'Souza acknowledges that these pieces of "evidence" don't actually prove anything illegal happened.
D'Souza, who was famously pardoned by former President Donald Trump of campaign finance crimes he pleaded guilty to, has publicly complained that various right-wing media figures have not done anything to promote his project. And there's a clear reason for that, wrote Fisher.
"Even a Trump-supporting right-wing firebreather like Ben Shapiro can’t bring himself to say D’Souza made a persuasive case with 2000 Mules, because the film’s central thesis simply isn’t backed by any supporting evidence — much less an overwhelming amount of verifiable, unimpeachable data," wrote Fisher. "There’s no reason to watch 2000 Mules, unless you really are looking to be well-equipped to argue with your MAGA relatives at Thanksgiving. The film isn’t meant to persuade anyone, it’s meant to reinforce the already passionate certainty in people who believe in something that simply does not exist."
"It is a vile piece of agit-prop, pushing a falsehood that could very well tear our country apart," concluded Fisher. "It’s also a very stupid movie, packaged as smart, fearless muckraking. In a sense, it’s a 90-minute safe space for MAGA snowflakes who can’t accept the fact that their hero is a loser."
The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1, and the Gulf of Mexico is already warmer than average. Even more worrying is a current of warm tropical water that is looping unusually far into the Gulf for this time of year, with the power to turn tropical storms into monster hurricanes.
It’s called the Loop Current, and it’s the 800-pound gorilla of Gulf hurricane risks.
When the Loop Current reaches this far north this early in the hurricane season – especially during what’s forecast to be a busy season – it can spell disaster for folks along the Northern Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida.
If you look at temperature maps of the Gulf of Mexico, you can easily spot the Loop Current. It curls up through the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, into the Gulf of Mexico, and then swings back out through the Florida Strait south of Florida as the Florida Current, where it becomes the main contributor to the Gulf Stream.
The Loop Current was about as far north as Tampa, Florida, in mid May 2022. The scale, in meters, shows the maximum depth at which temperatures were 78 F (26 C) or greater.
When a tropical storm passes over the Loop Current or one of its giant eddies – large rotating pools of warm water that spin off from the current – the storm can explode in strength as it draws energy from the warm water.
This year, the Loop Current looks remarkably similar to the way it did in 2005, the year Hurricane Katrina crossed the Loop Current before devastating New Orleans. Of the 27 named storms that year, seven became major hurricanes. Wilma and Rita also crossed the Loop Current that year and became two of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record.
The Loop Current in May 2005 looked strikingly similar to May 2022.
I have been monitoring ocean heat content for more than 30 years as a marine scientist. The conditions I’m seeing in the Gulf in May 2022 are cause for concern. One prominent forecast anticipates 19 tropical storms – 32% more than average – and nine hurricanes. The Loop Current has the potential to supercharge some of those storms.
Why the Loop Current worries forecasters
Warm ocean water doesn’t necessarily mean more tropical storms. But once tropical storms reach waters that are around 78 F (26 C) or warmer, they can strengthen into hurricanes.
Hurricanes draw most of their strength from the top 100 feet (30 meters) of the ocean. Normally, these upper ocean waters mix, allowing warm spots to cool quickly. But the Loop Current’s subtropical water is deeper and warmer, and also saltier, than Gulf common water. These effects inhibit ocean mixing and sea surface cooling, allowing the warm current and its eddies to retain heat to great depths.
In mid-May 2022, satellite data showed the Loop Current had water temperatures 78 F or warmer down to about 330 feet (100 meters). By summer, that heat could extend down to around 500 feet (about 150 meters).
The eddy that fueled Hurricane Ida in 2021 was over 86 F (30 C) at the surface and had heat down to about 590 feet (180 meters). With favorable atmospheric conditions, this deep reservoir of heat helped the storm explode almost overnight into a very powerful and dangerous Category 4 hurricane.
Hurricane Ida’s pressure dropped quickly as it crossed a warm, deep eddy boundary on Aug. 29, 2021.
Within a storm, warm ocean water can create towering plumes of rising warm, moist air, providing high-octane fuel for hurricanes. Think about what happens when you boil a large pot of spaghetti on the stove and how the steam rises as the water gets hotter. As more moisture and heat rise within a hurricane, the pressure drops. The horizontal pressure difference from the center of the storm to its periphery subsequently causes the wind to speed up and the hurricane to become increasingly dangerous.
Since the Loop Current and its eddies have so much heat, they don’t significantly cool, and the pressure will continue to fall. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma had the lowest central pressure on record in the Atlantic, and Rita and Katrina weren’t far behind.
How hurricanes draw fuel from water water.
La Niña, wind shear and other drivers of a busy season
Forecasters have other clues to how the hurricane season might shape up. One is La Niña, the climate opposite of El Niño.
During La Niña, stronger trade winds in the Pacific Ocean bring colder water to the surface, creating conditions that help push the jet stream farther north. That tends to exacerbate drought in the southern U.S. and also weaken wind shear there. Wind shear involves the change in wind speeds and wind directions with height. Too much wind shear can tear tropical storms apart. But less wind shear, courtesy of La Niña, and more moisture in the atmosphere can mean more hurricanes.
How La Niña affects U.S.
La Niña has been unusually strong in spring 2022, though it’s possible that it could weaken later in the year, allowing more wind shear toward the end of the season. For now, the upper atmosphere is doing little that would stop a hurricane from intensifying.
It’s too soon to tell what will happen with the steering winds that guide tropical storms and affect where they go. Even before then, the conditions over West Africa are crucial to whether tropical storms form at all in the Atlantic. Dust from the Sahara and low humidity can both reduce the likelihood storms will form.
Studies suggest that the Atlantic is likely to see more storms intensify into major hurricanes as those temperatures rise, though there won’t necessarily be more storms overall. A study examined the 2020 hurricane season – which had a record 30 named storms, 12 of them hitting the U.S. – and found the storms produced more rain than they would have in a world without the effects of human-caused climate change.
Another trend we have been noticing is that the Loop Current’s warm eddies have more heat than we saw 10 to 15 years ago. Whether that’s related to global warming isn’t clear yet, but the impact of a warming trend could be devastating.
