Category: Security

This week in Honolulu a top U.S. official revealed that warships from the American, Japanese and South Korean navies were in position in November watching closely as the North Korean military launched its first spy satellite into space.

This week in Honolulu a top U.S. official revealed that warships from the American, Japanese and South Korean navies were in position in November watching closely as the North Korean military launched its first spy satellite into space.

Adm. John Aquilino, top commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told attendees at the 10th annual Republic of Korea-U.S. Alliance Night dinner at The Royal Hawaiian hotel Tuesday that while the Nov. 21 launch was highly publicized, “what you didn’t know was Adm. (Samuel ) Paparo pushed forward an Aegis destroyer, along with an ROK destroyer and a Japanese destroyer, and that force was in place in advance of that launch should it have been an intercontinental ballistic missile or some form of threat to the Republic of Korea, the United States or Japan.”

Aquilino said the move “was based on Adm. Pa ­paro’s assessment that the intelligence was there for a launch, and that we ought to be in place to defend our nations ” and that “immediately following that, he executed a trilateral maritime event with the (aircraft carrier ) USS Carl Vinson and ships from the ROK and the Japanese navies, put in place visually in order to deter any potential further actions from (North Korean leader ) Kim Jong Un.”

Paparo is commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and has been appointed by President Joe Biden to succeed Aquilino as top commander in the Pacific. He has played a key role in promoting trilateral cooperation among the U.S., South Korea and Japan—which has been a major priority for U.S. officials in both Washington and Honolulu amid tensions in the Pacific.

The U.S. condemned the satellite launch as a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, which was passed shortly after North Korea’s first successful nuclear test in October 2006, bans North Korea from launching ballistic missiles or carrying out further nuclear tests. The U.S. and other countries that condemned the launch of the satellite contended that the North Korean military had used missile technology to launch the satellite, and is using the launch to further develop weapons.

But North Korea has for its part accused the U.S. and South Korea of hypocrisy after the South Korean military successfully launched its first indigenous-built spy satellite in the United States with the help of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Dec. 1. The South Korean government has a contract with SpaceX to launch five spy satellites by 2025.

Pyongyang’s official state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday quoted a spokesperson for North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration asserting that “it is a space-level tragicomedy that the U.S., going frantic with illegal denunciation and sanctions moves over the exercise of (North Korea’s ) sovereignty, has shown behavior based on double standards by launching a spy satellite of the ‘Republic of Korea’ in a shameless manner.”

Aquilino said the joint deployment of the warships underscored that talk of cooperation between countries is “not just words.”

Relations between South Korea and Japan have been historically uneasy. Japan subjected the Korean Peninsula to brutal colonial rule until 1945, and though today the two countries’ militaries train together and trade relations are strong, many Koreans still distrust their former occupiers. But increased concerns about North Korea’s missile program have pushed Tokyo and Seoul closer together.

In 2022, North Korea launched 95 ballistic and other missiles—more than any previous year—even as it faces harsh sanctions. Launches have continued this year at a slower pace with 25 launches, the most recent in April. North Korean officials have stated that the launches are in response to aggression by the United States, South Korea and Japan and have pledged to continue developing their arsenal.

“Common threats are helping Korea and Japan overcome a long and complicated history, ” Pa ­paro told the Star-Advertiser in 2022. “The United States’ bilateral alliances with each makes the United States very much key interlocutors for each and is a catalyst for the continued partnership that we’re seeing.”

Souring relations with China have also led South Korea and Japan to cooperate more closely. Both countries are among those that have had tense disagreements with China over maritime territorial and navigation rights in disputed waters off their shores. Tokyo and Seoul also have expressed concern over boiling tensions over territorial and navigation rights in the South China Sea, a busy waterway that more than a third of all international trade moves through. China claims the entire sea as its own sovereign territory over the objections of its neighbors.

The establishment of blockades or the breakout of conflict in the South China Sea could potentially shut down commercial shipping and send shock waves through the global economy. In 2022, the speaker of the ROK National Assembly, Kim Jin-pyo, told the Star-Advertiser, “We have to ensure the free navigation of maritime paths in the Pacific Ocean, including the Taiwan Strait, and I believe that cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region has to be expanded in the future.”

While the relationship between Seoul and Beijing has become strained, South Korean officials tend to tread carefully when discussing China publicly. South Korea, once a major recipient of foreign aid, now has the world’s 10th-largest economy, and business with China—the country’s No. 1 trading partner—has been key to its economic growth.

But business with the U.S. has also been important. During remarks at the Alliance Night dinner, South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Cho Hyun-dong said that America “should soon overtake China as our No. 1 export partner ” and that “Korea companies have invested or committed to more than $100 billion in the U.S. over the last two years, making America the No. 1 destination for Korean investors.”

According to the most recent data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, South Korea is now Hawaii’s No. 1 source of international imports as of 2022 and its No. 4 export market. That’s up from being Hawaii’s No. 2 export source and No. 6 export market in 2021.

Cho flew from Washington to Honolulu to meet with military officials like Aquilino and Paparo as well as to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the formal alliance between Washington and Seoul and the 120th anniversary of the arrival of the first Korean immigrants in America—who arrived in Hawaii as plantation workers.

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(c) 2023 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Ryan O’Neal, who starred in “Love Story” and “Paper Moon,” cementing his status as a heartthrob in the ‘70s, died Friday. He was 82.

He emerged as a heartthrob on television’s “Peyton Place” in the 1960s and arrived as a movie star in the sentimental 1970 box-office hit “Love Story.” Yet O’Neal achieved his most enduring fame off-screen, as the longtime companion of actor Farrah Fawcett, who died of a rare form of cancer in 2014, and father of four whose turbulent family drama often landed in the headlines.

After O’Neal was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying a preppy, star-crossed lover in “Love Story,” Bob Hope introduced him at the Oscars as Hollywood’s “leading boy,” a reference to O’Neal’s clean-cut good looks and relative youth. He was not quite 30.

When major long-term success eluded him, agent Sue Mengers theorized that her client’s romance with sex symbol Fawcett had helped sink his acting career: Together they were too Hollywood, too perfect, “Barbie dolls” who took your breath away. Others suggested his volatile nature was to blame.

Once O’Neal and Fawcett started dating in 1979, their stormy on-again, off-again relationship spanned the rest of her life. She returned to O’Neal’s side in 2001 when he was diagnosed with leukemia, and he was there for Fawcett during her three-year cancer battle that ended with her death at 62 in 2009.

O’Neal died Friday “with his loving team by his side,” his son Patrick announced in an Instagram post. Ryan O’Neal had announced that he had prostate cancer in 2012.

“My dad passed away peacefully today, with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us,” the actor and sportscaster wrote Friday. No cause of death was given.

Patrick O’Neal, Ryan O’Neal’s only child with fellow actor Leigh Taylor-Young, recalled his father as an actor “skilled at his craft,” who could memorize “pages of dialogue in an hour,” and as a humble, “generous” person. He recalled moments with his father on set as a child, watching him interact with crew members whom O’Neal loved and who “loved him” back.

“Ryan never bragged,” Patrick O’Neal continued. “But he has bragging rights in Heaven. Especially when it comes to Farrah. Everyone had the poster, he had the real McCoy. And now they meet again. Farrah and Ryan.”

“He’s had a strange career, but he was a monster star,” Paul Mazursky, who directed O’Neal in the 1996 comedy film “Faithful,” told Vanity Fair in 2009. “He’s sweet as sugar, and he’s volatile … but he’s a good guy, and he’s very talented.”

In 1964, O’Neal began to break through on “Peyton Place,” the first soap opera to become a major prime-time hit. He played the wealthy Rodney Harrington alongside Mia Farrow, who was the show’s other famous discovery. She left early on, but O’Neal stayed for virtually the show’s entire five-year, 500-plus episode run.

“Love Story” director Arthur Hiller chose O’Neal from more than 300 actors to play Oliver Barrett IV, who falls for Ali MacGraw’s character, a feisty co-ed who meets an untimely soap opera-esque death. Both lead actors uttered the movie’s most famous line, which became a national catchphrase: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Even reviewers who winced at “Love Story’s” tearjerker plot conceded that O’Neal’s performance “makes the film almost tolerable,” according to a 1971 Life magazine profile of O’Neal that ran beneath the headline “A Very Brash Young Man.” He had already served more than 50 days in jail for assault and battery at the time.

He stood out in the early 1970s in two films by director Peter Bogdanovich, “What’s Up, Doc?,” a romantic farce that also featured Barbra Streisand, with whom O’Neal was having an affair; and “Paper Moon,” a charming black-and-white comedy about an exasperated con man and his daughter, played by O’Neal’s real-life offspring, Tatum.

When Tatum received an Oscar for the 1973 role, she became the youngest person to win a competitive Academy Award. Neither of her parents was in the audience to witness the 10-year-old’s triumph, an early public display of the family’s dysfunction.

Her mother, actor Joanna Moore, struggled with drug addiction, and her father was jealous that Tatum stole his thunder on “Paper Moon,” Tatum said years later. He blamed his daughter’s Oscar for causing family tension. “Everybody hated everybody because of that Academy Award,” he said in the 2009 Vanity Fair profile.

O’Neal’s next film, 1975’s “Barry Lyndon,” should have established him as a serious actor. Instead, the Harvard Lampoon dubbed him “the worst actor of the year” for his role as the 18th-century rogue at the center of writer-director Stanley Kubrick’s slow-paced epic. The film failed at the box office, but is now seen as one of Kubrick’s more formidable achievements.

Years later, O’Neal told Vanity Fair: “I never got a good job after it. I didn’t have an image.”

He was in his mid-30s, and his career had already peaked.

Hollywood observers began to characterize him as pompous, vain, surly and overly macho, “a product of the Southern California sun-worshiping lifestyle masquerading as an actor,” according to a 1977 Los Angeles Times article.

His string of movies between the late 1970s and early 1990s included “Oliver’s Story,” a dismal “Love Story” sequel; “The Main Event,” a labored farce that reteamed him with Streisand; and “Irreconcilable Differences,” a comedy-drama co-starring Shelley Long that fared better with critics.

At some point he stopped trying as an actor, O’Neal once admitted, a sentiment that may have applied to his personal life as well.

While promoting “Both of Us,” his 2012 memoir about life with Fawcett, O’Neal seemed dispirited on the “Today” show when asked if he was a bad parent. He responded: “I suppose I was.”

“I can’t help but wonder how someone raised in a stable and loving environment could have ended up making such a mess of his own family life,” O’Neal wrote in his memoir.

He was born Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal on April 20, 1941, in Los Angeles, the eldest of two sons of Charles O’Neal, a B-movie screenwriter, and his actor wife, Patricia. His brother Kevin also became an actor. Much of O’Neal’s childhood was spent abroad, where his parents found work.

An amateur boxer in his youth, O’Neal’s first job in show business was as a stuntman on a German TV series. After returning to the U.S., he was cast in 1962 in the short-lived television western “Empire.”

By the early 1960s, O’Neal and his private life were under the media microscope. Photographs of him with Moore and their young children — Tatum and Griffin — were fan-magazine staples.

After actor Taylor-Young joined “Peyton Place” in 1966, O’Neal separated from his wife of three years and married Taylor-Young in 1967. They had a son, Patrick, before divorcing six years later.

“In the old days, there wasn’t one woman in Ryan’s life — there were hundreds,” Mengers told Vanity Fair in 1991.

Fawcett entered his life when her husband, actor Lee Majors, asked his buddy O’Neal to check up on her while Majors was on location. Fawcett was soon staying at the oceanfront home in Malibu that O’Neal bought for $130,000 in the early 1970s from director Blake Edwards.

O’Neal openly admitted he largely went missing as a parent after that.

“My family was fractured,” Tatum wrote in her 2011 book “Found: A Daughter’s Journey Home,” a title she said was “wishful thinking.” Life with the O’Neals was “a stew of drama, drugs, violence and tragedy,” wrote Tatum, who struggled with heroin addiction.

In 1985, O’Neal and Fawcett had a son, Redmond, who has been in and out of drug-treatment programs and jail or prison since he was 13. When O’Neal and Fawcett had a major breakup in 1997, she attributed it to conflicts over parenting. He later wrote that she had walked in on O’Neal with a young actor with whom he was having an affair.

“They were dynamic, strong-willed people who often clashed,” longtime friend Alana Stewart said of O’Neal and Fawcett in 2012 in USA Today. “But they had this deep connection and a deep love.”

Shortly before Fawcett died, O’Neal said he and Fawcett were planning to marry. “We had a rhythm that worked, but I’m hard to live with,” he said on “Today.”

Snapshots of his personal life were often unsettling. He got into well-publicized fights with his sons, knocked out two of Griffin’s teeth when he was a teenager and, in 2007, fired a gun at him. The next year, O’Neal and Redmond were both arrested for possessing methamphetamines.

Redmond was in jail on attempted murder charges when he was allowed to attend his mother’s funeral, where his father flirted with someone he called “a beautiful blond woman” until she said, “Daddy, it’s me — Tatum!” He cast the interaction as an “innocent private joke.”

Of his four children, only sportscaster Patrick O’Neal has been untouched by drugs and serious problems and has retained a stable relationship with his father.

In addition to his four children, O’Neal is survived by eight grandchildren.

With Fawcett, O’Neal appeared in the 1989 television movie “Small Sacrifices” and the 1991 sitcom “Good Sports.” More recently, he had a recurring role on the TV drama “Bones.” He also battled a slew of ailments — diabetes, leukemia, prostate cancer and a bad heart.

He was, however, a steady presence in the Emmy-nominated stark video diary that Fawcett kept about her struggle with cancer that aired in 2009 on NBC as “Farrah’s Story.”

In another unscripted television show, “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” father and daughter were presented in 2011 as trying to repair their damaged relationship. Both were “funny, fierce and unapologetically warped,” according to the Times review.

But the rapprochement, O’Neal later said, was only for the cameras.

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© 2023 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Freshly indicted First Son Hunter Biden believes his father’s political rivals are aware of his struggles with addiction and are trying to kill him.

The 53-year-old businessman scion, who has been under investigation throughout his father’s presidency, was hit with nine tax charges Thursday in California. He also faces a gun charge in Delaware and possible prison time.

On the latest episode of the “Moby Pod” podcast, Biden claimed the attacks against him are part of an ongoing effort to “undermine” the president.

“They decided that the one way in which they would be able to certainly just undermine my dad’s confidence and ability to continue to campaign and move forward, particularly after the death of my brother [was] to [make him] think that he could lose his son that he just had regained from an almost-death, through addiction,” Biden told rockstar Moby, whom he met in rehab. “You know, addiction provides for a lot of openings for people.”

President Biden has frequently spoken about the 2015 death of his son Beau Biden, who battled brain cancer after fighting in Iraq and serving as Delaware’s attorney general. The president has also said he’s “proud” of his younger son, whose debaucherous exploits have been made public in recent years thanks to photos apparently recovered from an abandoned laptop that show Biden using drugs and cavorting with questionable characters.

“As long as my dad is president of the United States, they’re not going to stop,” Biden said.

Even though his father has been in politics as long as he can remember, Biden said he’s never seen anything like the “never-ending hurricane” he has personally experienced during his dad’s presidency. That includes regular appearances on tabloid newspaper covers and cable news channels that are never positive. He also said MAGA supporters with bullhorns protested outside his home while his wife was in the third trimester of a pregnancy.

Moby asked Biden how he copes with all that attention.

“To be completely honest, it’s a struggle,” he confessed, adding that “this week was really hard… really hard to keep it cool.”

According to Biden, as his troubles mount, he’s literally in a do-or-die situation.

“There’s no doubt in my mind — and this might sound like some crazy hyperbole — that they’re trying to kill me through other means, and I just won’t let them,” he said.

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© 2023 New York Daily News

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Republican 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy generated attention on social media Sunday when he appeared to urinate while his microphone was on during a Twitter Space livestream.

During a Sunday livestream alongside individuals like Elon Musk, Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, and Jack Posobiec, Ramaswamy appeared to accidentally leave his microphone on while relieving himself in the restroom.

A video clip of the incident Sunday that was shared on X, formerly Twitter, highlights the moment the other livestream panelists discovered that Ramaswamy’s microphone was still on.

“I’m super pro-human, and I mean all humans. Uh, you know, humans in America, humans in Africa and Asia,” Musk said before the Tesla CEO and X owner was interrupted by another speaker on the livestream who pointed out a strange noise apparently coming from Ramaswamy’s microphone.

READ MORE: Video: Surging GOP prez candidate Vivek calls for kid social media ban

“Someone’s got their thing open peeing. Someone’s got their phone open in the bathroom,” Alex Jones said, before warning the Republican presidential candidate, “Vivek, Vivek, that’s your phone, Vivek. I’m not able to mute you.”

After Ramaswamy laughed and apologized for the incident, Musk joked, “Well, I hope you feel better now.”

Ramaswamy answered, “I feel great, thank you,” before laughing and apologizing once again for forgetting to turn off his microphone.

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy takes a piss with his mic on during an 𝕏 Space with 100K+ listeners

Elon Musk: “I hope you feel better”

Vivek: “I feel great, thank you” pic.twitter.com/3ljslTqnpX

— Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) December 10, 2023

According to The Guardian, Sunday’s livestream on X reportedly had over 100,000 listeners at the time of the audio incident, with approximately 2.3 million users listening to different parts of the livestream.

The Daily Caller reported that many social media users reacted in amusement to the accident. One user wrote, “Vivek is literally draining the swamp,” while another user jokingly questioned, “Is he the first candidate we’ve heard pee?” Another social media user described the incident, saying, “The wildest group of people laughing over a piss you’ll ever hear in one conversation lol.”

Democrats pushing for former President Donald Trump’s name to be prevented from appearing on 2024 election ballots continue to double down on their efforts, appealing to old cases in a new twist in their attempt to disqualify Trump over claims that he engaged in insurrection.

According to Newsweek, the latest push to prevent the former president from appearing on the election ballot is pointing to a ruling from 1968, which prohibited former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver from appearing on the ballot in California since he did not mean the 35-year-old minimum age requirement for presidential candidates.

Newsweek reported that the Colorado Supreme Court is considering the review of a case by a lower court that ruled Trump had been involved in an insurrection against the United States as a result of the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. The lower court ruled that Trump’s name could remain on the 2024 election ballot since the ban on insurrectionists holding political office in the United States did not provide a clear indication regarding its application to the office of the presidency.

According to Newsweek, Derek T. Muller, a University of Notre Dame law professor, has filed a briefing regarding the Colorado Supreme Court case. Muller claims that there have been multiple examples of presidential candidates who have been prevented from appearing on the ballot as a result of ineligibility under the U.S. Constitution.

READ MORE: Trump makes bold prediction about Biden; warns president is surrounded by ‘evil’ people

In Muller’s briefing, which was obtained by Newsweek, he cited the 1968 case of Cleaver as a primary example of a candidate being excluded from the ballot.

“Cleaver was the 33-year-old nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party. He challenged the exclusion in state court, which rejected his challenge,” Muller wrote. “Cleaver petitioned for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. Without comment, the Court rejected the petition.”

Muller claimed that the Cleaver example “demonstrates the fact that a state did exclude a candidate from the ballot for failure to meet the qualifications for office.” He added, “And intriguingly, California excluded Cleaver even though Cleaver would become eligible during the four-year [presidential] term of office.”

Muller told Newsweek that his briefing was filed as a legal view of the current case and was not filed either for or against Trump. However, he claimed that the Cleaver case could present a difficulty for Trump.

“[Trump] has argued that states have no power to judge the qualifications of candidates or that it is a political question. The historical record, however, suggests that in at least some cases, states have excluded candidates,” Muller said.

The Colorado Supreme Court case comes as both Trump and his Democratic opponents have appealed the lower court’s ruling. The Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the case on December 6.

While Muller told Newsweek that the Colorado Supreme Court case could rule against Trump’s name appearing on the ballot, it is unlikely that Trump’s opponents will be successful.

“There are a number of things that the Colorado Supreme Court must find to exclude him from the ballot, but any one thing in Trump’s favor can keep him on,” Muller stated.

In a recent interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the shocking sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists in Israel, describing it as “almost beyond human description.”

Blinken’s comments came during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, who questioned the secretary of state regarding the United Nations and the international community’s delayed response in condemning the atrocities linked to Hamas.

“I can’t think of a real reason,” Tapper said. “Well, let me just put it this way. I have heard anti-Semitism hypothesized as a reason why the U.N. and the international community might be so slow to acknowledge this. What do you think?”

In response, Blinken expressed his own perplexity at the delayed global attention, saying, “I’m glad it’s finally happened.”

“The atrocities that we saw on October 7 are almost beyond human description or beyond our capacity to digest,” Blinken added, emphasizing the severity of the actions committed by Hamas terrorists. He further highlighted the extreme nature of the sexual violence committed against Israelis, which he described as “beyond anything that I have seen either.”

READ MORE: Pic: 4-year-old US hostage, 16 others released by Hamas terrorists

Blinken acknowledged that he did not have “a good answer” to Tapper’s question and suggested that the question is something countries and international organizations that exhibited a delayed reaction to the atrocities committed by Hamas would need to “ask themselves.”

During Sunday’s interview, Tapper noted that the United States was the only nation to block a United Nations Security Council resolution to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. Blinken explained that Israel “needs to be able” to take action in order to “protect itself” and to “prevent Oc. 7 from happening again.” He also highlighted the need for civilian lives to be protected as Israel continues to eliminate Hamas terrorists.

This news article was partially created with the assistance of artificial intelligence and edited and fact-checked by a human editor.

The Social Security Administration has demanded money back from more than 2 million people a year — more than twice as many people as the head of the agency disclosed at an October congressional hearing.

That’s according to a document KFF Health News and Cox Media Group obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Kilolo Kijakazi read aloud from the document during the hearing but repeatedly left out an entire category of beneficiaries displayed on the paper as well.

The document indicates the fallout from Social Security overpayments and clawbacks is much wider than Kijakazi acknowledged under direct questioning from a House Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the federal agency.

In a statement for this article, SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann described the numbers of people Kijakazi provided in her testimony and those she left out as “unverified.”

“We cannot confirm the accuracy of the information, and we have informed the committee,” Tiggemann said.

The numbers “were gathered quickly,” the spokesperson said. Social Security systems “were not designed to easily determine this information,” she said.

After the October hearing, KFF Health News and Cox Media Group sent Tiggemann several emails asking her to clarify whether the annual numbers Kijakazi gave to Congress included all Social Security programs or just a subset. She would not say.

For answers, the news organizations several weeks ago filed a FOIA request.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., a member of the subcommittee, said in an interview that he wondered if the agency “intentionally deflated the numbers to not make it look as bad as it is.”

“Maybe we should have her come back in for another hearing, put her under oath,” and ask her “why she wasn’t being completely upfront about the numbers,” Steube said.

Steube said that, when he heard Kijakazi’s testimony, he thought she was giving the subcommittee the complete numbers.

At issue is the scope of a problem that has terrified many Social Security beneficiaries and plunged them into financial distress.

As KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations jointly reported in September, the government has been trying to recover billions of dollars from beneficiaries it says it overpaid. In many cases, the overpayments were the government’s fault.

But, even in cases where the beneficiary failed to comply with requirements, years can pass before the government catches the mistake and sends a notice demanding repayment, often within 30 days. In the meantime, the amount the beneficiary owes the government can grow to tens of thousands of dollars or more — far more than people living month to month could likely repay.

The people affected may be retired, disabled, or struggling to get by on only minimal income.

The number of people experiencing overpayments is important to know because overpayments can cause a lot of harm, said Kathleen Romig of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who worked in research at the Social Security Administration and has since spent 20 years in the field of Social Security policy.

“It should be a very high priority at the agency to produce more reliable numbers,” Romig said.

The Social Security Administration has long quantified overpayments in dollars rather than numbers of people affected. For example, the agency’s latest annual financial report says it recovered more than $4.9 billion in overpayments in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 and ended that period with a cumulative uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion.

In September, SSA’s Tiggemann said, “We do not report on the number of debtors.”

In subsequent interviews with the news organizations, some lawmakers said the agency owed the public that information. “If they’re not telling you, I can assure you that’s a question that I’m going to ask in a hearing,” said Rep. Mike Carey of Ohio, the No. 2 Republican on the subcommittee.

At an Oct. 18 hearing, Carey brought up the number of debtors and told Kijakazi, “I think it’s something that we really need to get to the bottom of.”

Then he asked, “Do we have a number of how many people have been impacted by these overpayments?”

“We do,” Kijakazi replied. “And I’m, I looked at that before I came. I’m, I’m sorry. I’m not thinking of the number right now. But I can provide that.”

Carey pressed further.

“How many people are receiving overpayment notices in a year?” he asked.

At that point, Tom Klouda, a deputy SSA commissioner, got up from his seat behind Kijakazi and handed her a piece of paper.

Reading from the page, she gave two precise numbers: 1,028,389 for the 2022 fiscal year and 986,912 for the 2023 fiscal year.

When Carey asked if 986,912 “individuals were getting these letters in the mail saying that there was an overpayment and that they needed to contact you guys and set up a payment plan,” Kijakazi said, “That’s right.”

“Seems like an awful lot,” Carey said.

Under further questioning from Carey, Kijakazi repeated the numbers. She said they were “under Social Security” and “for Social Security.”

Subsequently, the agency declined to clarify what Kijakazi meant by that. Replying to a series of emails, Tiggemann would not say whether the numbers included all the Social Security programs.

Instead, she implied the agency didn’t know.

“Again, our overpayment systems were not designed to easily determine the information you’re requesting,” she wrote on Nov. 29.

The document obtained via FOIA shows that the numbers Kijakazi gave at the hearing covered only two of the three Social Security benefit programs. They did not cover Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, which provides financial support for people who have little or no income or assets and are blind, otherwise disabled, or at least 65 years old.

On the paper that the deputy commissioner handed Kijakazi, overpayment counts for SSI appeared directly below the numbers she read aloud, and they were bigger: 1,118,648 people in fiscal 2022 and 1,189,642 in fiscal 2023.

The document is titled in part, “Overpayment Basic Facts.”

In the document, the numbers Kijakazi read at the hearing, which round to about 1 million people a year, are labeled “T2.” Title II of the Social Security Act covers two programs: Disability Insurance, or DI, and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, or OASI.

The numbers Kijakazi omitted are labeled “T16.” Title XVI of the Social Security Act covers SSI.

Within the Social Security Administration, personnel use the term T16 when referring to SSI and T2 when referring to OASI and DI combined, said Romig, the former agency researcher.

It’s possible that some people who received overpayment notices through SSI also received notices through the other programs, leading to overlap between the numbers Kijakazi read at the hearing and those she didn’t provide, Romig said.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the agency paid SSI benefits to an average of 7.5 million recipients a month. Measured in dollars, the overpayment rate in SSI has been running about 8%, according to the agency’s latest annual financial report. That’s much higher than the half a percent overpayment rate for OASI and DI combined.

A written statement Kijakazi submitted to the House subcommittee included a clue that the numbers of people she gave the committee didn’t provide a complete picture. In the statement, dated Oct. 18, Kijakazi used the term “the Social Security program itself” to describe Disability Insurance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance — but not SSI.

A press release the Ways and Means Committee issued after the hearing made no such distinction. “One Million Americans a Year Affected by Social Security’s Improper Payment Highlights Need for Reform,” it said.

The document obtained via FOIA included other new information. It showed that relatively few beneficiaries contest overpayment notices and that many appeals or requests for waivers fail.

Weeks after KFF Health News and CMG television stations published and broadcast the first stories in their series, the Social Security chief ordered a review of overpayments.

In her statement Dec. 5, the agency spokesperson said that, as part of the review, the Social Security Administration is “looking at how best to inform the Agency, the public, and Congress about this workload.”

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© 2023 KFF Health News.

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U.S. officials and cybersecurity experts warn that the Chinese military is increasingly attempting to infiltrate essential infrastructure, utilities, communication, and transportation services in the United States.

According to The Washington Post, anonymous U.S. officials and cybersecurity experts recently noted that hackers linked with China’s People’s Liberation Army have infiltrated roughly two dozen essential service entities throughout the past year.

The anonymous officials and experts claimed that China’s infiltration of critical entities is part of its widespread plan to disrupt or destroy essential services if a conflict occurs between China and the United States in the Pacific region.

According to the information obtained by The Washington Post, hackers linked with China’s People’s Liberation Army infiltrated services such as a water utility in Hawaii, an oil and gas pipeline, and a West Coast port. Hackers also attempted to infiltrate Texas’ power grid, as well as multiple entities outside of the United States.

READ MORE: US deploying anti-ship missiles in 2024 to deter China

While the anonymous U.S. officials told The Washington Post that none of the hacking attempts impacted industrial control systems such as the operation of pistons, pumps, or other crucial functions, the officials noted that the hacking attempts on a water utility in Hawaii, a shipping port, and logistic centers could indicate that the Chinese military is planning to use cyber attacks to prevent the U.S. from responding to any potential conflict in Taiwan.

“It is very clear that Chinese attempts to compromise critical infrastructure are in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict, to either prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia or to cause societal chaos inside the United States — to affect our decision-making around a crisis,” Brandon Wales, executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said. “That is a significant change from Chinese cyber activity from seven to 10 years ago that was focused primarily on political and economic espionage.”

Morgan Adamski, director of the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, told The Washington Post that China’s Volt Typhoon hacking operation “appears to be focused on targets within the Indo-Pacific region, to include Hawaii.”

Joe McReynolds, a China security studies fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, explained that hackers are trying to secretly “build tunnels” into infrastructure that can eventually be used in a cyber attack.

“Until then, you lie in wait, carry out reconnaissance, figure out if you can move into industrial control systems or more critical companies or targets upstream,” McReynolds said. “And one day, if you get the order from on high, you switch from reconnaissance to attack.”

A U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashed off the coast of South Korea on Monday morning local time. The pilot safely ejected and is in stable condition.

According to a press release from Kunsan Air Base, an F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 8th Fighter Wing “experienced an in-flight emergency over the Yellow Sea” just before 9 a.m.

Republic of Korea Maritime Forces recovered the pilot, who officials described as “awake and in stable condition.”

“We are grateful for the safe recovery of our Airman by our ROK Allies and that the pilot is in good condition,” Col. Matthew C. Gaetke, 8th FW commander, said in a statement.

It is unclear what caused the “in-flight emergency,” but the incident will be “thoroughly investigated,” officials said.

The incident comes days after a United States CV-22 Osprey military aircraft crashed off the coast of Japan’s Yakushima Island.

The Osprey aircraft experienced an “emergency water landing” at roughly 2:47 p.m. local time. After the crash, the 10th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters noted that it had dispatched aircraft and a patrol boat to the crash site.

A Japanese Coast Guard spokesperson told NBC News that the aircraft landed in the ocean near Yakushima, which is located approximately 45 miles south of Japan’s main island of Kyushu.

This was a breaking news story. The details were periodically updated as more information became available.

A Cook County judge overturned the murder conviction Tuesday of a man who was found guilty in a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station primarily based on the testimony of an eyewitness who turned out to be legally blind.

Darien Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior with a clean criminal record when prosecutors charged him in an ambush-style shooting that left one man dead and another seriously injured in June 2011.

Now 30, Harris has long maintained his innocence, saying he was at home watching LeBron James play in the NBA finals between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks. But a now-retired judge found Harris guilty in 2014 and sent him to prison for 76 years.

More than four years ago, his legal team, family and friends began urging the conviction integrity unit of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to take another look at the case. Among other arguments, they said the key witness had failed to disclose to the trial judge that the witness was legally blind because of his glaucoma.

Though those efforts did not yield immediate results, Cook County prosecutors agreed with Harris’ post-conviction request to vacate his conviction and sentence, clearing the way for a new trial. On Tuesday, Cook County Judge Diana Kenworthy granted Harris’ request, saying simply: “So we are going to start over.”

The judge, citing the serious nature of the charges, declined to free Harris while he awaits his new trial. Harris is charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm.

Shackled at the ankles and dressed in blue jail garb, Harris did not speak during the brief court hearing. He waved to his wife and mother and an uncle seated in the courtroom gallery before being led back to jail.

His mother, Nakesha Harris, told reporters afterward she is disappointed prosecutors decided to retry the case.

“They’re wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” she said. “We’re retrying a case with no physical (or) DNA evidence. All the witnesses recanted (and) changed stories, and the judge based his verdict off the testimony of a blind man.”

Members of the victims’ families did not attend Tuesday’s court hearing.

The judge who found Harris guilty in 2014 was unaware during the trial of the witness’s medical diagnosis, according to Harris’ attorney, Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, who said in court filings that Harris was wrongfully convicted based on mistaken eyewitness testimonies and without physical evidence tying him to the crime.

The victim in the shooting, 23-year-old Rondell Moore, had pulled into a BP gas station in Woodlawn because of car troubles after 8 p.m. on June 7, 2011.

Moore put up the car’s hood to inspect the problem, assisted by a local mechanic who arrived at the station on his bike shortly afterward. Moore’s older brother and a friend also were there.

The station’s surveillance system did not capture the shooting, but prosecutors said the video did show an individual walking away from a black Lexus and around the gas station building toward the area where the shooting occurred, then running away shortly afterward.

The video showed a man whose thin build and short hairstyle generally fit Harris, but the suspect’s face was not visible.

Moore, who was shot three times, ran from the gas station and died in a nearby parking lot. The 51-year-old mechanic survived bullet wounds to his back and an arm.

Harris was arrested days later. He opted to have a judge rather than a jury decide his fate at trial. At the time, Cook County Judge Nicholas Ford said he based his ruling primarily on the testimony of Dexter Saffold, a man who testified that he witnessed the shooting while on his way home from a fast-food restaurant.

Saffold testified that he was riding his motorized scooter north on Stony Island Avenue near the gas station when he heard gunshots and saw someone about 18 feet from him holding a dark handgun. Saffold testified he saw the shooter aiming the gun at a person near a car with its hood up. He could see the muzzle flashes and heard more than two gunshots, Saffold testified. He also said the shooter bumped into him while running away, nearly dropping the gun while trying to put it into a pocket.

Saffold picked Harris out of a police lineup and also identified him in court during the trial.

Saffold’s eyesight came up only briefly during the trial, court records show. Harris’ attorney asked Saffold if his diabetes affected his vision. He replied yes, then paused and changed his answer, denying he had vision problems.

But Saffold’s doctor had deemed him legally blind some nine years before the murder, records show. As part of Harris’ 2022 post-conviction petition, his legal team cited medical records dating to 2002 that Saffold had publicly filed in various lawsuits regarding his disability. Harris’ attorneys also presented to the court an expert opinion from an ophthalmologist regarding Saffold’s impaired vision.

“He has very, very poor vision,” Myerscough-Mueller told reporters Tuesday. “He really couldn’t see anything.”

In rendering his guilty verdict in 2014, Judge Ford said he found Saffold credible. Ford called him an “honest witness” and said he’d given “unblemished” testimony. The “inconsistencies” in the testimony did not rise to the level of reasonable doubt, said the judge, unaware of Saffold’s medical diagnosis. Saffold could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Harris case was the subject of a 2019 investigation by the local journalism organization Injustice Watch.

Though prosecutors maintain they have credible evidence from other eyewitnesses that point to Harris’ guilt, Myerscough-Mueller alleged police misconduct played a role in those identifications. She said the alleged getaway driver, who has since died, took the stand during Harris’ trial and recanted his initial identification of Harris. He said Harris was never in his car and that police officers coerced him into making a false identification, threatening to “put (him) in jail for the rest of (his) life” if he did not cooperate, according to court records.

The police detectives also testified, denying they pressured the man to identify Harris. Ford noted the man’s recantation might be due to fear rather than the truth. Though prosecutors aren’t required to provide a motive, they theorized during the trial that there was bad blood between Darien Harris and the Moore brothers.

Harris’ attorneys also said in court records that they have uncovered evidence identifying the actual shooter as another teenager who was killed several months later, also during an ambush-style shooting at a South Side gas station.

Myerscough-Mueller, an attorney with the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, said a gas station employee who did not testify during Harris’ 2014 trial has identified that man — not Harris — as the shooter in the earlier incident. The employee alleged police tried to coerce him into making a false identification, according to the attorney.

In a statement, Foxx’s office said prosecutors did not object to vacating Harris’ conviction “due to shifts in witness testimony and available evidence, in the interest of justice and to ensure that the principles of fairness and due process are upheld.”

“This decision is not made lightly, but with a profound sense of responsibility towards the integrity of our legal system and the community we serve, and securing justice for the victim,” the statement read. “We are committed to a fair and just resolution of this case, guided by the evidence and the law.”

Prosecutors pledged to pursue a new trial.

The defendant’s wife, Jessica Harris, also attended Tuesday’s court hearing. She told reporters they married more than a year ago. She and his family regularly visited him while he was incarcerated in downstate Menard Correctional Center, they said.

“That’s a good thing about Darien. He’s very positive,” his wife said. “You will never see him not smiling. So he has very high hopes for his case.”

He’ll now be held at the Cook County Jail pending his new trial. Harris is due back in court Dec. 19, when a trial date may be set.

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