Kansas unveils a mural honoring ‘rebel women' who campaigned for voting rights
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has a new mural in its Statehouse honoring women who campaigned for voting rights for decades before the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted those rights across the nation.
Gov. Laura Kelly and other state officials unveiled the 'Rebel Women' painting that spans an entire wall on the first floor on Wednesday, the anniversary of Kansas' admission as the 34th U.S. state in 1861.
While Kansas Day is traditionally marked with renditions of the official state song, 'Home on the Range,' Wednesday's event also featured the women's voting rights anthem, 'Suffrage Song,' to the tune of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'
A 2022 law authorized the mural, and artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, of Manhattan, in northeastern Kansas, won the contest with a depiction of 13 prominent Kansas suffragists. A few women in the crowd of several hundred people were dressed as 19th century campaigners who were active before statehood.
Kansas prides itself as entering the union as an anti-slavery free state, but it also was more progressive than other states in gradually granting women full voting rights. Women could vote in school elections in 1861 and in city elections in 1887, and the nation's first woman mayor, Susanna M. Salter, was elected in Argonia, Kansas, that year. Voters amended the state constitution in 1912 to grant women full voting rights.
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Chinese hackers and user lapses turn smartphones into a 'mobile security crisis'
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Groups linked to China's military and intelligence service have targeted the smartphones of prominent Americans and burrowed deep into telecommunication networks, according to national security and tech experts. It shows how vulnerable mobile devices and apps are and the risk that security failures could expose sensitive information or leave American interests open to cyberattack, those experts say. 'The world is in a mobile security crisis right now,' said Rocky Cole, a former cybersecurity expert at the National Security Agency and Google and now chief operations officer at iVerify. 'No one is watching the phones.' U.S. authorities warned in December of a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign designed to gain access to the texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans. 'They were able to listen in on phone calls in real time and able to read text messages,' said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the senior Democrat on the Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, created to study the geopolitical threat from China. Chinese hackers also sought access to phones used by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance during the 2024 campaign. The Chinese government has denied allegations of cyberespionage, and accused the U.S. of mounting its own cyberoperations. It says America cites national security as an excuse to issue sanctions against Chinese organizations and keep Chinese technology companies from the global market. 'The U.S. has long been using all kinds of despicable methods to steal other countries' secrets,' Lin Jian, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said at a recent press conference in response to questions about a CIA push to recruit Chinese informants. 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'The American people deserve to know if Beijing is quietly using state-owned firms to infiltrate our critical infrastructure,' U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich. and chairman of the China committee, which in April issued subpoenas to Chinese telecom companies seeking information about their U.S. operations. Mobile devices can buy stocks, launch drones and run power plants. Their proliferation has often outpaced their security. The phones of top government officials are especially valuable, containing sensitive government information, passwords and an insider's glimpse into policy discussions and decision-making. The White House said last week that someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, reached out to governors, senators and business leaders with texts and phone calls. It's unclear how the person obtained Wiles' connections, but they apparently gained access to the contacts in her personal cellphone, The Wall Street Journal reported. 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It doesn't matter how secure a mobile device is if the user doesn't follow basic security precautions, especially if their device contains classified or sensitive information, experts say. Mike Waltz, who departed as Trump's national security adviser, inadvertently added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a Signal chat used to discuss military plans with other top officials. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols set up in his office so he could use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, the AP has reported. Hegseth has rejected assertions that he shared classified information on Signal, a popular encrypted messaging app not approved for the use of communicating classified information. China and other nations will try to take advantage of such lapses, and national security officials must take steps to prevent them from recurring, said Michael Williams, a national security expert at Syracuse University. 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Hamilton Spectator
29 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Iran claims without evidence that it took Israeli nuclear files
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The Hill
36 minutes ago
- The Hill
Iran claims without evidence that it took Israeli nuclear files
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's intelligence minister claimed without offering evidence Sunday that Tehran seized an 'important treasury' of information regarding Israel's nuclear program, ahead of a week in which the Islamic Republic likely will face new diplomatic pressure over its own program. The remarks by Esmail Khatib follow Iranian state television claiming Saturday that Iranian intelligence officials seized documents, again without any evidence. Israel, whose undeclared atomic weapons program makes it the only country in the Mideast with nuclear bombs, has not acknowledged any such Iranian operation targeting it — though there have been arrests of Israelis allegedly spying for Tehran amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Iran, meanwhile, will likely face censure this week from the Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency over longstanding questions about its program. Iran has also signaled it will reject a proposal from the United States after five rounds of negotiations over its nuclear program — setting the stage for that long-running crisis to potentially spike as well. Responding to questions from an Iranian state TV reporter Sunday after a Cabinet meeting, Khatib said members of the Intelligence Ministry 'achieved an important treasury of strategic, operational and scientific intelligence of the Zionist regime and it was transferred into the country with God's help.' He claimed thousands of pages of documents had been obtained and insisted they would be made public soon. Among them were documents related to the U.S., Europe and other countries, he claimed, obtained through 'infiltration' and 'access to the sources.' He did not elaborate on the methods used. However, Khatib, a Shiite cleric, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2022 over directing 'cyber espionage and ransomware attacks in support of Iran's political goals.' For Iran, the claim may be designed to show the public that the theocracy was able to respond to a 2018 Israeli operation that spirited out what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a 'half ton' of documents related to Iran's program. That Israeli announcement came just before President Donald Trump in his first term unilaterally withdrew America from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which greatly limited its program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. This week, Western nations are expect to go before the IAEA's Board of Governors with a proposal to find Iran in noncompliance with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. It could be the first time in decades — and likely would kick the issue to the U.N. Security Council. That could see one of the Western countries involved in the 2015 nuclear deal invoke the so-called 'snapback' of U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The authority to reestablish those sanctions by the complaint of any member of the original 2015 nuclear deal expires in October — putting the West on a clock to exert pressure on Tehran over its program before losing that power. Iran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Tehran has enough highly enriched uranium to build multiple atomic bombs should it choose to do so. Without a deal with the U.S., Iran's long-ailing economy could enter a freefall that could worsen the simmering unrest at home. Israel or the U.S. might carry out long-threatened airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. Experts fear Tehran in response could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA and rush toward a bomb. ___ Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape:
