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Fox News
30-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
China targets US military members in overseas spy operations, former CIA station chief warns
A former CIA station chief says China has U.S. military service members and government employees in the "crosshairs" of its overseas spy operations. Jian Zhao and Li Tian, both active-duty Army soldiers, were arrested in early March after allegedly selling "Top Secret" information to individuals based in China, according to the Department of Justice. Zhao and Tian were both indicted by federal grand juries in Washington and Oregon. Federal prosecutors allege Tian sold sensitive military information to former soldier Ruoyu Duan, who would allegedly receive money from individuals residing in China. Tian then allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars for selling the sensitive information. Included in the alleged documents Tian sold was a Google Drive link containing classified documents about the Stryker combat vehicle. Tian also allegedly sent additional sensitive data on U.S. weapons systems. Prosecutors said the incidents highlight efforts by China to use "cut-outs," known as people trusted by Chinese intelligence services, to gather sensitive information that could help the Chinese government. Those "cut-outs" then recruit individuals with access to or knowledge of U.S. government information, which includes current and former government officials. According to the court documents, security video showed Tian allegedly brought his personal cellphone into a classified area of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington in May 2024, printed a classified document and left with it. He would allegedly return over three hours later with the document. Prosecutors also alleged that Tian took screenshots of sensitive information on several occasions. In a connected case at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Zhao allegedly sold classified information to an unnamed co-conspirator. According to federal prosecutors, Zhao received at least $15,000 for the documents. Zhao allegedly sold 20 military hard drives to an individual in China, some containing a "Secret" label. Zaho allegedly conspired to sell information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System as well as information related to U.S. military readiness if there was a war with China. "While bribery and corruption have thrived under China's Communist Party, this behavior cannot be tolerated with our service members who are entrusted with sensitive military information, including national defense information," said FBI Director Kash Patel on the charges. Former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman told Fox News Digital he thinks U.S. military service members as well as government employees are being targeted to take part in these spy operations. "I think anybody who serves in the U.S. government is in the crosshairs. And China will do it," Hoffman said. "Sometimes they'll run their recruitment operations posing as someone else. So maybe somebody doesn't want to go spy for China, but they might pretend to be somebody else. Or they might contact you on social media, on LinkedIn or some other site and pose as someone not so nefarious when in fact they are." Hoffman said gaining intel from the U.S. military is one of the Chinese government's "highest requirements." "They want to recruit U.S. military because there's a probability we might go to war with China, and not just U.S. military, but NATO members as well, and throughout Asia. So they've got a massive intelligence apparatus," he said. China isn't just targeting the U.S. military. It's targeting many other aspects of American society as well, including academia. Five former University of Michigan students were charged in October 2024 after they were allegedly caught spying on a National Guard training center for the Chinese government during a training session with the Taiwanese military. The former University of Michigan students were confronted by a Utah National Guard sergeant major in August 2023 near a lake at Camp Grayling in Michigan. Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on U.S. and China relations, told Fox News Digital the Chinese Communist Party "will exercise whatever tactics they feel they need to by hook or crook to get our military secrets," adding China is "shameless." "This is a tactic that China is exercising in the new Cold War that we're locked in with the Chinese Communist Party. And one of the things that is really striking is the low price that a lot of Americans are willing to sell their patriotism for and their allegiance for. Some of these people didn't get that much money to sell some really sensitive military secrets over to the Chinese Communist Party," Sobolik said.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Assassin Bugs: Scientists Reveal How a Deadly Insect Manipulates Its Prey
An insect that harvests and modifies plant resin to snare its prey adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests we may be underestimating the cunning of invertebrate animals. The assassin bug (Pahabengkakia piliceps), found across Thailand and China, smears its legs with plant resin, but not just for the reason you might think. The smell of the sap lures their prey to the optimal attack position, greatly improving the odds of the bug's success in hunting. "We empirically demonstrate how an invertebrate predator adapts to the colony defense of social insects via tool use behavior," writes a team of researchers, led by entomologists Zhaoyang Chen and Li Tian of China Agricultural University, in a new paper. "Our findings offer a new model for studying the adaptive functions and underlying mechanisms of tool use behaviors in animals." In recent years, we've been discovering that tool use in non-human animals is probably more common than we once thought – and it's not limited to vertebrates. Insects such as bees and ants use tools to make their lives easier; and a 2023 study on Australian assassin bugs found that these intrepid invertebrates use resin to make themselves sticky, facilitating greater success at prey capture. P. piliceps is a different species in a different region of the world, and its lifestyle is a lot more specialized than the assassin bugs of Western Australia. It relies on very particular prey: six species of stingless bee. It builds its own nest not far from the hives of stingless bees, and hangs around the entrance to the bees' hives to prey upon them. The bees only possess degenerate stingers, which means they need to get creative with their defensive measures. They coat the entrances to their hives with droplets of resin; when interlopers trying to infiltrate the hive get caught in the resin, guard bees come rushing out to attack and neutralize the threat. So here's what P. piliceps does. It dips its legs in the resin deposited by the worker bees, applying an even coating to its front and middle legs. Then, it sits by the hive entrance, and captures the guard bee that comes scurrying over to see what the fuss is all about. The assassin bug then retreats with its secured prey to a nearby safe location. It gets even more interesting, though. Even though resin is all around the entrance to the hive, the guard bee makes a beeline (heh) for the waiting assassin bug. Something else seemed to be at play. To investigate, the researchers conducted field experiments in which they examined the stickiness of the resin and the role it played. They smeared the hindlegs and butts of some of the assassin bugs with bee resin and watched what happened. Even assassin bugs with resin smeared on their butts and hindlegs – not the legs they use for grabbing – showed more hunting success than assassin bugs with no resin. This suggested that the stickiness played only a partial role in successful predation, unlike their Australian relatives. So the researchers conducted experiments to find out why. They hypothesized that, when resin dries, it emits volatile compounds at a lower rate, and that by smearing it on their legs, the assassin bugs increase the volatile release rate. Chen and colleagues placed some resin in a ventilated environment, and measured the emission rate before and after smearing. Sure enough, the volatile emission rate was higher after smearing. This suggests that, by manipulating the resin, the bugs are signaling to the bees that they need to come and deal with a problem. Then, they just become a bigger problem. This, the researchers say, constitutes tool use. "To be classified as tool use, a behavior must satisfy three criteria:" they write in their paper, "1) exerting control over a manipulable external object closely linked to a specific goal; 2) altering the user's or another organism's physical properties through a dynamic mechanical interaction; or 3) mediating the flow of information between the user and the environment or other organisms in the environment." The application of resin – an external object – alters the physical properties of the assassin bug's body to achieve a specific goal. That fits the specified criteria. It's interesting, though, that the way the tool is used differs from the way assassin bugs in Australia use a very similar tool. P. piliceps' bee specialization may play a role in this; but it will need further investigation. "While the role of food specialization in the evolution of resin use warrants future multi-species comparative studies within a phylogenetic framework," the researchers write, "this stingless bee-specialized assassin bug system offers a valuable model for investigating adaptive evolution and tool-use behaviors, with fewer ethical constraints than vertebrate-based studies." The research has been published in PNAS. 'Perfect Storm': Expert Reveals Why Pollen Allergies Are Getting Worse Scientists Shaved Roadkill to Find Out How Mammals Glow in The Dark Ultra-Rare 'Asian Unicorn' Has Genome Sequenced, And It Could Mean Everything
