Author: Reporter

Chinese leader Xi Jinping faces daunting obstacles if he is serious about trying to help end the 14-month-old war. The biggest: Neither Ukraine nor Russia is ready to stop fighting. Xi’s plan to send an envoy to Ukraine allows his government to deflect criticism of its support for Moscow and pursue a bigger role as a diplomatic force. His announcement on April 26 in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prompted optimism Beijing might use its warm relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to push for peace. That was followed by skeptical questions about whether Beijing is more...

A Chinese hacking group that is likely state-sponsored and has been linked previously to attacks on U.S. state government computers is still “highly active” and is focusing on a broad range of targets that may be of strategic interest to China’s government and security services, a private American cybersecurity firm said in a new report on March 30. The hacking group, which the report calls RedGolf, shares such close overlap with groups tracked by other security companies under the names APT41 and BARIUM that it is thought they are either the same or very closely affiliated, said Jon Condra,...

China has long been seen by the U.S. as a prolific source of anti-American propaganda but less aggressive in its influence operations than Russia, which has used cyberattacks and covert operations to disrupt U.S. elections and denigrate rivals. But many in Washington now think China is increasingly adopting tactics associated with Russia — and there’s growing concern the U.S. is not doing enough to respond. U.S. officials and outside experts cite recent examples of China-linked actors generating false news reports with artificial intelligence and posting large volumes of denigrating social media posts. While many of the discovered efforts are...

More than 43% of Hispanics either did not respond to the question asking them to select their race or selected the “some other race” box on the 2020 census form, the U.S. Census Bureau said recently, lending support to arguments that the federal government should change its race and ethnicity categories. The percent of the Hispanic population reporting a single race went down to 57.8% in the 2020 census from 81.6% in 2010 census, according to the Census Bureau. At the same time, around a third of the Hispanic population reported being two or more races in the 2020...