Category: Uncategorized

Researchers at the University of Connecticut have reportedly developed a method to genetically modify organisms without leaving any foreign genes behind. According to a study published in Horticulture Research, the method could be used to make plants more disease-resistant.

This approach could address two issues. For starters, many people don’t want genetically modified organisms — otherwise known as GMOs — in their food because of potential long-term health impacts. Dozens of countries have even banned the use of GMOs in food, and other countries have put strict regulations on them. If plant genomes are edited without leaving behind foreign genes, the crop isn’t considered a GMO.

More importantly, this method could make plants not only resistant to disease — as mentioned above — but also to drought and heat. As the planet continues to get warmer, extreme weather events such as droughts and heat waves threaten the global food supply. Hundreds of millions of people across the planet face chronic hunger, and this method could go a long way in protecting the food supply.

On top of that, lower crop yields due to these issues affect the income of farmers. The advancements made by Yi Li — a professor of horticulture plant breeding technology at the University of Connecticut College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources — could change all of that.

Scientists have edited plant genomes for years using the CRISPR gene-editing technology in an effort to develop plants with more desirable traits, but that generally leaves behind foreign genes. There are existing methods that don’t leave genes behind, but they’re typically time-consuming or technically demanding.

Li’s team first developed a transgene-free genome-editing method in 2018 and has refined it using kanamycin. This chemical can help identify cells temporarily containing CRISPR-related genes in plant cells infected by Agrobacterium, which can transfer part of its DNA into the plant genome. Cells containing CRISPR genes are more resistant to kanamycin than other cells, so the use of kanamycin allowed edited cells to grow without having to compete with unedited cells.

According to the study, the new method is 17 times more efficient than the previous version in producing genome-edited citrus plants, but it can be used on other plants.

“Our new but simple method is far more effective and can now be applied to a much wider range of plant species than our original approach,” Li said in a school release.

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(Photo Credit: The Charlie Kirk Show on Rumble)

Donald Trump Jr. proclaimed the Republican Party is a thing of the past — his dad is now leading the “America First Party” and “Make America Great Again Party.”

President Donald Trump’s son made the claim during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday.

Trump Jr. said it is a new era for the conservative movement — one that is constantly under attack from the Democratic Party and Republicans In Name Only (RINOs). He said those attacks are ramping up as both parties plow towards the 2026 midterm elections.

Here is what the told the AmFest crowd:

Midterms are coming around the corner and make no mistake, the Democrat Party wants to do whatever they possibly can to shut this movement down. Not just the Democrats. The RINOs.

You see the manufactured attacks on JD [Vance], myself, my father — anyone who understands that this isn’t the Republican Party anymore. It’s the America First Party. It’s the Make America Great Again Party. And we are not going back!

His remarks drew a fairly big roar from the crowd — followed by a “USA! USA! USA!” chant.

“I love it, guys,” Trump Jr. said. “By the way, if someone wasn’t chanting USA next to you, you know they’re a Democrat plant, because they just can’t do it. It’s like pouring holy water on a vampire.”

He then urged the crowd to back Republicans — without using the term he just said was obsolete — in the ’26 midterms, because it will help his dad continue to fight for “Americans feeling left behind” like “young white men.” 

“[Young white men] for a generation were left behind by DEI,” he said. “They were told ‘Well, you know, you don’t check a couple boxes, so you may be better, you may be smarter, but you’re not getting into that college. You’re not getting that job, you’re certainly not getting a promotion. But you better damn well realize you’re privileged, despite being discriminated against.’ It’s funny, but it’s actually happening.”

He spoke to the crowd right before Erika Kirk took the stage with rapper Nicki Minaj.

Watch his comment on the Republican party being the MAGA/America First party above.

The post ‘This Isn’t The Republican Party Anymore!’ Don Jr. Proclaims Trump Leads the ‘America First’ and MAGA Party first appeared on Mediaite.

Dec 21, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / Cyber Espionage

Threat hunters have discerned new activity associated with an Iranian threat actor known as Infy (aka Prince of Persia), nearly five years after the hacking group was observed targeting victims in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

“The scale of Prince of Persia’s activity is more significant than we originally anticipated,” Tomer Bar, vice president of security research at SafeBreach, said in a technical breakdown shared with The Hacker News. “This threat group is still active, relevant, and dangerous.”

Infy is one of the oldest advanced persistent threat (APT) actors in existence, with evidence of early activity dating all the way back to December 2004, according to a report released by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 in May 2016 that was also authored by Bar, along with researcher Simon Conant.

The group has also managed to remain elusive, attracting little attention, unlike other Iranian groups such as Charming Kitten, MuddyWater, and OilRig. Attacks mounted by the group have prominently leveraged two strains of malware: a downloader and victim profiler named Foudre that delivers a second-stage implant called Tonnerre to extract data from high-value machines. It’s assessed that Foudre is distributed via phishing emails.

The latest findings from SafeBreach have uncovered a covert campaign that has targeted victims across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India, and Canada, as well as Europe, using updated versions of Foudre (version 34) and Tonnerre (versions 12-18, 50). The latest version of Tonnerre was detected in September 2025.

The attack chains have also witnessed a shift from a macro-laced Microsoft Excel file to embedding an executable within such documents to install Foudre. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the threat actor’s modus operandi is the use of a domain generation algorithm (DGA) to make its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure more resilient.

The latest version of Tonnerre, on the other hand, includes a mechanism to contact a Telegram group (named “سرافراز,” meaning “proudly” in Persian) through the C2 server. The group has two members: a Telegram bot “@ttestro1bot” that’s likely used to issue commands and collect data, and a user with the handle “@ehsan8999100.”

While the use of the messaging app for C2 is not uncommon, what’s notable is that the information about the Telegram group is stored in a file named “tga.adr” within a directory called “t” in the C2 server. It’s worth noting that the download of the “tga.adr” file can only be triggered for a specific list of victim GUIDs.

Also discovered by the cybersecurity company are other older variants used in Foudre campaigns between 2017 and 2020 –

• A version of Foudre camouflaged as Amaq News Finder to download and execute the malware
• A new version of a trojan called MaxPinner that’s downloaded by Foudre version 24 DLL to spy on Telegram content
• A variation of malware called Deep Freeze, similar to Amaq News Finder, is used to infect victims with Foudre
• An unknown malware called Rugissement

“Despite the appearance of having gone dark in 2022, Prince of Persia threat actors have done quite the opposite,” SafeBreach said. “Our ongoing research campaign into this prolific and elusive group has highlighted critical details about their activities, C2 servers, and identified malware variants in the last three years.”

The disclosure comes as DomainTools’ continued analysis of Charming Kitten leaks has painted the picture of a hacking group that functions more like a government department, while running “espionage operations with clerical precision.” The threat actor has also been unmasked as behind the Moses Staff persona.

“APT 35, the same administrative machine that runs Tehran’s long-term credential-phishing operations, also ran the logistics that powered Moses Staff’s ransomware theatre,” the company said.

“The supposed hacktivists and the government cyber-unit share not only tooling and targets but also the same accounts-payable system. The propaganda arm and the espionage arm are two products of a single workflow: different “projects” under the same internal ticketing regime.”