Chinese researcher in alleged plot to smuggle crop-killing fungus into US will remain in custody while seeking private counsel
The Chinese researcher accused of helping smuggle a potentially devastating crop-killing fungus into the US will remain in custody until she retains private counsel, according to reports.
Yunqing Jian, 33, appeared in a Detroit courtroom for a detention hearing Thursday afternoon, where a public defender assigned to her case asked the court to reconvene once Jian can hire her own lawyer.
The judge consented and scheduled a new detention hearing for June 13. Jian, a Chinese national and researcher at the University of Michigan, will remain in custody until then, CBS News reported.
Yunqing Jian, 33, is seeking private counsel after being assigned a public defender.
Sanilac County Jail
She was arrested on June 3, nearly a year after her boyfriend — 34-year-old Zunyong Liu — was stopped by Customs and Border Patrol after arriving at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a plane from Shanghai last July.
Liu was found to be carrying samples of Fusarium graminearum, a fungus with the potential to wreak havoc on American crops and farming if successfully manipulated to resist treatment.
The danger could be so great that one Trump administration official characterized it as 'an attack on the American food supply' while speaking with The Post.
Jian was working as a lab researcher at the University of Michigan through funding provided by the Chinese government last summer when her beau — himself a researcher at a Chinese university — was caught trying to enter the country with the samples on the way to visit her.
Liu initially tried to hide the samples and then denied they were his, but eventually fessed up and told officials that he wanted to study them at the University of Michigan lab where his girlfriend did similar work.
Jiang was arrested on June 3, nearly a year after her husband was barred from the US
On his phone, agents found a PDF article about 'Plant-Pathogen Warfare' that described Fusarium graminearum as 'an example of a destructive disease and pathogen for crops' that is 'responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year.'
He was barred from entering the country and put on a plane back to China.
Jian was interviewed by the FBI about the incident at a University of Michigan lab in February, and told investigators that she first learned about her boyfriend's plan when he was stopped at the airport.
But searches into her communications with Liu showed the pair had discussed sneaking samples of fungus and seeds past US Customs since at least 2022 — and that in 2024 Jian signed a document pledging 'support the leadership of the Communist Party of China' and to uphold 'Mao Zedong thought and Marxism-Leninism' in January 2024 before her boyfriend's encounter in Detroit.
Both were charged with conspiring to smuggle a potentially dangerous fungal pathogen into the US, while Liu remains at large with a warrant out for his arrest.
Fusarium graminearum already exists in the US, and while it's responsible for an estimated loss of $200-400 million worth of US agriculture per year, Rutgers University molecular biologist Dr. Richard Ebright told The Post it could pose a critical risk to US food supplies if it were modified for resistance or virulence.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jesse Watters Trots Out Dehumanizing Analogy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Return
Fox News host Jesse Watters criticized the Trump administration for bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, saying the wrongly deported man's return was like taking a rental car to the car wash. 'I don't think they should have brought him back,' Watters said on The Five, shortly after news broke that Abrego Garcia is facing two counts of human smuggling in Tennessee. 'This is a national security situation. The guy is a designated terrorist. He belongs somewhere else. What are we going to do? We're going to spend two years and $50 million trying this guy and imprisoning this guy, feeding him, giving him healthcare, and then flying him home?' Watters said incredulously. 'This is like renting a car and taking it to a car wash before you return it,' he added. 'What's the point? It's not your car, and it's going back anyway.' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Abrego Garcia would first serve time in a U.S. prison if convicted, then be removed from the country once again. Garcia had been held in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center even after the Trump administration admitted his deportation was an 'administrative error.' When the Supreme Court ordered that it 'facilitate' his return, the White House insisted that it was powerless to do so. Friday's events proved the administration was lying, The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov said Friday. '[White House Press Secretary] Karoline Leavitt—as well as other members of the administration, from the president himself to Kristi Noem—lied to the American people when they said they couldn't bring him back,' Tarlov said. 'Well, I guess you could get him back.' Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, made the same point. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along—that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' he told The New York Times. 'It's now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.' Abrego Garcia was sent to Tennessee, where the indictment was filed in May and unsealed Friday. The Times reports that an imprisoned man's information about Abrego Garcia moved the case forward. Prosecutors couldn't agree how to proceed, however, and one ended up resigning.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How Did Richard Ramirez Die? Here's Why the Night Stalker's Demise Didn't Happen on Death Row 12 Years Ago
Serial killer Richard Ramirez — known as the "Night Stalker" — murdered at least 13 people in the Los Angeles area from 1984 to 1985 He was sentenced to death in 1989 He died in in 2013 at 53 years oldRichard Ramirez — a.k.a. the Night Stalker — terrorized Los Angeles with his twisted crimes in the 1980s. From April 1984 to August 1985, Ramirez killed at least 13 people, sneaking into their homes in the middle of the night through open windows and unlocked doors, per CBS News. But his trail of terror didn't stop there: Ramirez also robbed, raped and beat many others, using a wide variety of weapons (including handguns, knives and even a tire iron) to inflict his brutality, according to CBS. The randomness of his attacks and methods left authorities perplexed — and allowed Ramirez to escape capture for more than a year. However, the Texas-born murderer was eventually caught on Aug. 31, 1985, as he attempted to steal a car in East L.A. An angry mob of citizens — who recognized him from media coverage as the Night Stalker — surrounded him, beating him with a steel rod until police arrived. It would take another four years for Ramirez to be brought to trial for his crimes. But on Sept. 20, 1989, the man known as the Night Stalker was found guilty of all 43 counts — including 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries. Ramirez was given a total of 13 death sentences, and was sentenced to be executed by gas chamber, The New York Times reported. Ramirez died in June 2013 at 53 years old, according to the Los Angeles Times. 'He never showed any remorse for what he had done,' Frank Salerno, one of the detectives who helped capture Ramirez, said in the 2017 Reelz docuseries Murder Made Me Famous. 'He was pure evil.' So how did Richard Ramirez die? From the Night Stalker's final days to his continued notoriety, here's everything to know about his death behind bars. Ramirez died while awaiting execution for the string of horrific crimes he committed in California between 1984 and 1985. Initially, California corrections officials stated that Ramirez died of natural causes, per the Los Angeles Times. However, a coroner's report released 10 days after his death revealed that he had died due to complications from blood cancer. According to the Marin County coroner's office, Ramirez had B-cell lymphoma — a common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was not clear when Ramirez had been diagnosed with cancer or whether he had been receiving treatment for it. Additionally, Ramirez had other significant conditions at the time of his death, including 'chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis C viral infection.' The drug abuse occurred prior to Ramirez's imprisonment (more than two decades earlier) and was likely the cause of his hepatitis C infection, the Marin County assistant chief deputy coroner told USA Today. 'It's likely something that he has been dealing with for years,' the coroner said about Ramirez's hepatitis C infection, per USA Today. 'It's killing your liver.' Shortly after his capture and arrest, a friend of Ramirez's named Donna Myers confirmed that Ramirez had started to use cocaine the year prior, dissolving it in water and shooting it up. (Hepatitis C is often spread by the use of intravenous drugs, per USA Today.) 'He had cut marks, you know, tracks, running across his left arm,' Myers told PEOPLE about Ramirez's extensive drug abuse. 'He broke off a needle in his arm one day... he got so hooked on cocaine he just got wigged out.' Ramirez died at 9:10 a.m. on June 7, 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times. Ramirez died at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, Calif., according to the Los Angeles Times. He had been admitted to the hospital earlier in the week from San Quentin State Prison, where he had been on death row since receiving his sentence in 1989. Ramirez, who was born on Feb. 29, 1960, was 53 years old when he died. While Ramirez's final words before his death are unknown, his statements at his sentencing made it clear that he did not fear dying. When the jury recommended the death penalty on 19 different counts at his October 1989 trial, Ramirez appeared unbothered. 'Big deal,' he told reporters, per the Los Angeles Times. 'Death comes with the territory. See you in Disneyland.' At his sentencing one month later, in November 1989, Ramirez delivered a chilling monologue to the packed courtroom — which included members of his family, victims who survived his attacks and relatives of those he killed. 'You don't understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience,' Ramirez said, according to the Los Angeles Times. He continued, 'I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all. That's it.' Emotions surrounding Ramirez's death were mixed. Some expressed relief over the end of the serial killer's life, while others felt disappointed that he did not face the execution by gas chamber that he was sentenced to. Law enforcement officials viewed the death of the notorious serial killer as the closing of 'a dark chapter in the history of Los Angeles,' NBC Los Angeles reported. Though Ramirez was never executed, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Alan Yochelson expressed to the Los Angeles Times that 'some measure of justice has been achieved,' since the notorious killer lived out the last two-plus decades of his life behind bars. Many of Ramirez's surviving victims and relatives of those he killed, however, felt that the killer known as the Night Stalker did not deserve to live as long as he did. 'It's about time,' Bill Carns, one of the last people attacked by Ramirez, told the Los Angeles Times. 'He should have been put to death an awful long time ago.' Reyna Pinon, the wife of one of the men who helped capture Ramirez, echoed a similar sentiment: 'To me, he had a better death than all those people whose lives he took,' she said. Doreen Lioy, a freelance magazine editor who Ramirez married in 1996 while in prison, declined to comment to reporters following Ramirez's death. However, Ramirez's relatives in El Paso, Texas, released a statement asking for privacy. 'We are mourning the loss of our son and brother, Richard Ramirez,' the family told the El Paso Times. 'The world judged him, whether fairly or unfairly, it no longer matters. He is now before the true judge, the judge that sees and knows all things. We ask that you respect our sorrow and grief.' Ramirez's reputation as one of the most notorious serial killers in history has lived on since his 2013 death — particularly in the L.A. area. Signs of the terror the Night Stalker inflicted on southern Californians in the 1980s still remain intact today. 'Everybody kept their windows open and he was crawling in windows,' Tiller Russell, who directed the 2021 Netflix docuseries Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, told PEOPLE. 'So to this day in L.A., when you drive around, that's why there are bars on the windows.' The haunting memory of Ramirez has also been kept alive through pop culture references, with his life and crimes inspiring songs, television shows, films and documentaries. Since Ramirez's death, the 2016 film The Night Stalker, the 2024 film MaXXXine, episodes of American Horror Story and multiple documentaries and docuseries have all told his sadistic story. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Thai hostage recovered from southern Gaza in military operation
The body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who was abducted alive during the October 7 attacks was recovered from southern Gaza in a military operation on Friday, according to a statement from the Israeli military and the Shin Bet security service. The announcement comes just days after Israel recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages from Gaza. Pinta, 35, was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel where he had been working in agriculture, according to an Israeli military official, who said it is estimated that he was killed during the first months of captivity. Pinta was a husband and father working in Israel to support his family in Thailand, the official said. 'We will not rest until all the hostages, living and deceased, are returned home,' Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Pinta was abducted by the Mujahideen, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, a militant group that took part in the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack on Israel. The IDF said it is the same organization that kidnapped the Bibas family and killed Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, the mother and two young sons who became the most prominent among Hamas' captives. CNN has approached the Thai authorities for comment. Earlier this week, Israel announced that the bodies of Judy Winston-Haggai, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 72, were recovered from southern Gaza. The two were also taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. The couple had four children and seven grandchildren. The retrieval of Pinta's body comes with an intense Israeli operation underway in Gaza, with the Civil Defense reporting at least 38 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Friday. The IDF said four soldiers were killed and five wounded early Friday morning when an explosive was detonated in a building in Khan Younis in which they were operating, causing part of the structure to collapse. A total of 55 hostages remain in Gaza, including one taken in 2014. Twenty are believed to still be alive. Of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas militants on October 7, many were migrant workers from poor rural parts of Asia, who had gone to work in Israel's agricultural, construction and health care sectors to send money back home.
