Hard Numbers: Starlink glitch hits Ukraine, Fake ambassador gets real cash in India, French president sues over “she’s a man” scandal, and more…
2.5: Ukraine’s military communications were down for 2.5 hours last night, during a global outage of Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals. Ukraine relies heavily on Starlink because of their resistance to Russian espionage and signal jamming. But that comes at a cost: a new report says that in 2022 Musk ordered the company to deactivate over 100 terminals during a pivotal Ukrainian counteroffensive.
52,095: Wait, you’ve never heard of the country of “Westarctica”? How about “Seborga”? Indian authorities have arrested a man who posed as an ambassador – replete with credentials and diplomatic license plates – from both fictional states. His grift? Scamming people for money in exchange for fake jobs abroad. As part of the raid, authorities recovered $52,095 in cash from the bogus embassy he ran on the outskirts of New Delhi.
22: French President Emmanuel Macron is suing rightwing commentator Candace Owens for 22 counts of defamation for peddling a conspiracy theory that his wife, Brigitte Macron, is a man. The couple has reportedly asked Owens to stop making the claim for around a year. Owens calls their lawsuit a “desperate public relations strategy.” Is the French president about to learn the meaning of L’effet Barbara Streisand?
20: At least 20 are dead after gunmen opened fire on a village in the central Nigerian state of Riyom. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far, but violence in neighbouring Benue state has surged recently, as local herders and farmers compete for limited land and water resources.
8: An Arizona woman has been sentenced to over 8 years of prison, after helping hundreds of North Korean workers obtain remote IT jobs at over 300 US companies under false identities stolen from American citizens. The scheme generated more than $17 million in revenue.