News of the World

[kyonides]

New ‘Cardboard Envelope’ Tax Scam Is Targeting Taxpayers

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a warning to taxpayers about a new scam mail scheme that attempts to trick people into believing the government owes them money.

“The new scheme involves a mailing coming in a cardboard envelope from a delivery service,” the IRS said in a statement on July 3.

Inside the cardboard envelope is a letter on IRS masthead while fraudulently claiming that the notice is “in relation to your unclaimed refund.”

While dangling the prospect of obtaining unclaimed tax refund dollars, the letter asks taxpayers to provide sensitive personal information, including detailed photographs of drivers’ licenses. The data that the scammers are trying to obtain can be used by thieves to try and obtain a tax refund or other sensitive financial information.

“This is just the latest in the long string of attempts by identity thieves posing as the IRS in hopes of tricking people into providing valuable personal information to steal identities and money, including tax refunds,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.
...
One unusual feature, according to the IRS, is that it tries to trick people to email very detailed personal information and tells recipients the need to provide “filing information” for their tax refunds.

The scam letter includes a variety of warning signs, including strange punctuation and a mixture of different fonts, with some requests being awkwardly worded, such as: “A Clear Phone of Your Driver’s License That Clearly Displays All Four (4) Angles, Taken in a Place with Good Lighting.”

The fraudulent notification then asks for additional information that is sensitive, with the wording of the request also awkward.

“You’ll Need to Get This to Get Your Refunds After Filing. These Must Be Given to a Filing Agent Who Will Help You Submit Your Unclaimed Property Claim. Once You Send All The Information Please Try to Be Checking Your Email for Response From The Agents Thanks,” the letter reads, per the IRS.

National Archives Releases Most, but Not All JFK Files: ‘We Protect What We Must’

More than 99 percent of the classified documents surrounding the 1963 assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy have been publicly released following the conclusion of a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) review, according to the White House.

Sharing the news at a June 30 press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the review’s conclusion demonstrated the Biden administration’s commitment to government transparency and accountability.
...
“As a result, over 99 percent of the records in the collection are now publicly available at the National Archives. In keeping with the president’s direction, the National Archives will be digitizing the entire collection to make it more accessible to the public.”

Earlier that day, in a memo to executive department and agency heads, President Joe Biden revealed that NARA had notified him of the review’s completion on May 1, requesting that the release of certain redacted information be further postponed.

Biden obliged, certifying the specified information’s continued redaction for the time being and requiring all releasable information to be publicly disclosed by June 30.

Future reviews, he added, would be conducted by the National Declassification Center (NDC) at NARA, as per the transparency plans submitted by federal agencies.
...
Entities that sought the postponement of certain disclosures included the CIA, FBI, State Department, Defense Department, and NARA itself.

Since the December memo, NARA has published an additional 2,672 documents in full or with fewer redactions on its website.

California Death Row Murderers Closer to Parole Eligibility After New Bill Advances

Facing staunch opposition from family members of victims, law enforcement groups, and Republican lawmakers, a bill that would allow for resentencing of inmates convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee June 27 on a partisan vote.

Introduced with the intention of allowing a path for release for elderly inmates some believe to no longer be a risk to society, supporters of the bill say that imprisoning people for decades lacks humanity, with the bill intended to alleviate such concerns.

But some law enforcement representatives adamantly opposed the legislation, citing significant costs to the state, potential harm to family members, and risk to communities if the bill is approved.

“Dragging these murderers back into court will be prohibitively expensive, tie up judicial resources, and inflict further pain upon their victims,” the San Diego Deputy District Attorneys Association argued in opposition to the bill. “By creating presumptions favoring the release of these murderers, SB 94 will create unjustifiable risks to public safety.”

The bill, introduced by Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), offers a path to release for those convicted of murder with special circumstances before 1990—also known as capital murder—a classification for offenses deemed egregious by the state’s penal code and punishable by death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Multiple friends and family members of murder victims lined up in opposition to the bill, with district attorneys, police departments from across the state, and sheriff’s organizations also speaking against the measure.
...
The bill under consideration does not apply to cases after 1990 because of Proposition 115, passed by California voters that year, which prohibits judges from downgrading special circumstances convictions.

Exceptions in the bill are those convicted of killing a peace officer, first-degree murder of three or more people, and murder involving certain sexual offenses. Inmates can also be excluded if it can be proven they are an “unreasonable risk of danger.”

China’s $3 Trillion in ‘Shadow Reserves’ Threatens Global Economy: Former US Treasury Official

Mr. Brad Setser, who served on President Joe Biden’s 2020 transition Agency Review Team, recently warned that China possesses far more foreign exchange reserves than what the regime is reporting. He estimated in The China Project that Beijing likely has roughly $3 trillion “hidden,” something that could threaten the global economy in the future.

“China is so big that how it manages its economy and currency matters enormously to the world,” he said on June 29. “Yet over time, the way it manages its currency and its foreign exchange reserves has become much less transparent—creating new kinds of risks for the global economy.”

According to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), China officially has $3.204 trillion in foreign assets on the books as of April 2023. Beijing’s war chest consists of cash, bonds, bank deposits, gold, and other currencies.

The former deputy assistant Treasury secretary for international economic analysis noted that the country’s sudden pause in its reporting activity was a key hint at the present state of China’s reserves.

From 2002 to 2012, the Chinese regime’s forex reserves steadily increased amid the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) acquiring U.S. dollars to prevent the yuan from appreciating too much and ensuring exports remained cheap. However, in the last decade, the nation’s reserves ceased growing, despite a record trade surplus.

In the first five months of 2023, China’s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 28 percent year-over-year to $359.48 billion. Moreover, it is estimated that there is a gap of about $200 billion between China’s goods surplus in the balance of payments and the goods surplus that Beijing’s customs reports in the official data.

Mr. Setser, now the senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), believes officials are preventing data from appearing on the central bank’s balance sheet by relying on state-run banks and sovereign wealth funds.

Hong Kong Offers $120,000 Bounties for Human Rights Dissidents Living in US, Australia, UK

Hong Kong police are offering $1 million (US$127,650) bounties for information on eight human rights dissidents currently residing in the United States, UK, and Australia.

On July 3, the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force issued arrest warrants for the eight individuals, alleging they had contravened the National Security Law.

The law was passed by Beijing’s rubber-stamp legislature in 2020 and received widespread criticism for eroding the long-running “one country, two systems” model that ensured British-style rule of law over Hong Kong.

The eight individuals were accused of “endangering” Hong Kong’s national security—more specifically, the allegations of “incitement to secession, subversion, incitement to subversion, and collusion with a foreign country.”

A Hong Kong police spokesperson claimed the National Security Law granted authorities the power to pursue individuals located outside of the city.

Meanwhile, Steve Li (Li Kwai-wah), chief superintendent of the HK Police, vowed authorities would “not stop chasing” the dissidents.