A Pennsylvania police officer on Thursday told lawmakers that a local operator's bullet ultimately stopped failed assassination attempt shooter Thomas Crooks before the U.S. Secret Service fatally shot him. Edward Lenz's testimony came Thursday morning during a hearing before the House Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force, which has been tasked with investigating the July 13 shooting of former President Donald Trump, the first of two recent assassination attempts against him. "Across the two counter assault teams, the quick reaction force, three sniper teams and support personnel, we provided total manpower of 44 persons, exceeding the number requested by the Secret Service," Lenz, a commander with the Butler County Emergency Services Unit (ESU), said in his opening remarks. "At no point during the planning process was Butler County ESU asked to secure the AGR complex, nor the perimeter surrounding that area. At no point during the planning process was Butler ESU asked to deploy a sniper team to the roof of the AGR complex."

A preliminary report on the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Trump from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ripped into newly revealed missteps that went into the Secret Service's planning and execution of security at the event during which a spectator was killed, two others were seriously wounded and the GOP candidate was struck on the ear. Among the key failures, an agent inexperienced with drone equipment called a toll-free tech support hotline for help after a request ahead of time for additional unmanned assets was denied, according to a preliminary summary of findings made public Wednesday. According to the committee, he had just an hour of informal training with the device. "Multiple foreseeable and preventable planning and operational failures by USSS contributed to [Thomas] Crooks' ability to carry out the assassination attempt of former President Trump on July 13," the preliminary report read. "These included unclear roles and responsibilities, insufficient coordination with state and local law enforcement, the lack of effective communications, and inoperable C-UAS systems, among many others."

Fox News' Chad Pergram previews the Senate's Tuesday hearing with acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate as lawmakers continue investigating the security lapses at Trump's Butler rally. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, Jr. admitted to the Senate on Tuesday that the assassination attempt against former President Trump was "a failure of the Secret Service," and not local law enforcement. Rowe's admission was the most direct assignment of guilt by the Secret Service and investigators since the July 13 shooting. The acting director appeared before the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees on Tuesday alongside FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. Rowe detailed the failure of a drone detection system that was supposed to be online before shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks conducted his own reconnaissance the day of the rally.

PITTSBURGH – Local law enforcement repeatedly offered to provide drone coverage in the sky above former President Donald Trump's July 13 campaign rally – where he survived a failed assassination attempt – but was rebuffed by the U.S. Secret Service, according to Sen. Josh Hawley, citing a new whistleblower. "According to one whistleblower, the night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally," Hawley, a Missouri Republican and member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. "This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS WHY TRUMP RALLY OFFICER ASSIGNED TO SHOOTER'S PERCH MOVED Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. FBI Director Christopher Wray, whose agency has taken a lead role in the investigation, confirmed during a congressional hearing this week that the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, flew a drone of his own overhead before Trump took the stage.

Fox News correspondent CB Cotton reports that different agencies disagree on the events at the Trump rally shooting. Fox News drones provided a new perspective on the sight lines between Thomas Matthew Crooks, former President Trump and the Secret Service counter sniper teams at the fateful rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Thursday. Fox News correspondent CB Cotton also detailed the sight lines that Crooks had when firing on Trump. A drone recreation shows that Crooks was largely concealed from Secret Service counter snipers by a large tree, though he still had an angle on the former president. The Secret Service agent who neutralized Crooks was stationed on a building behind Trump.

Learn how to protect yourself from cybercrimes with useful tips and tricks from tech expert Kim Komando like turning off your location services and Bluetooth.

Unscrupulous companies across the globe trying to flout the Modern Slavery Act could soon have their nefarious plans thwarted thanks to an AI driven tool being developed in Brisbane. As more people turn to AI tools like ChatGPT to free up their time spent writing, Brisbane-based academic Adriana Eufrosina Bora is focusing on a tool devoted to reading. Specifically, her AI software will have a specialised niche interest in the Modern Slavery Act, a document that companies and organisations in many countries across the world increasingly need to address if they are to win government tenders or contracts. Depending on the size of the company, the documents can run to more than 1000 pages long, as organisations demonstrate the values and policies they hold and the procedures they enact to ensure modern forms of slavery aren't part of the way they recruit and retain staff and conduct business. The workload, as Eufrosina Bora explained to InQueensland, is in some cases overwhelming government departments where staff are tasked to check compliance manually.

You can help prevent others from falling victim to the same romance scam and remember if something seems too good to be true. Get ready for this quick heartbreaking story about love gone wrong from a crafty and callous global dating scam artist. CLICK TO GET KURT'S CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, SECURITY ALERTS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER I recently received an email from Linda, who is concerned and wondering if she should worry about falling for a scam from a person she's been talking to online. Here's what she had to say: "I have been in contact with a man who is a Structural Engineer that says he lives and has his office in Wisconsin, but currently is in Dubai overseeing the construction of buildings that he was awarded a contract to build, we talk on the phone all the time and text all the time. He has shared everything that I have asked.

All of the materials and tools needed to make deepfake videos – from source code to publicly available images and account authentication bypass services – are readily available and up for sale on the public internet and underground forums. Cyber criminals are taking advantage of this easy access to resources, and using deepfakes to build on today's crime techniques, such as business email compromise (BEC), to make off with even more money, according to Trend Micro researchers. Not only that, but deepfakes are being used in web ads to make Elon Musk, security specialists, and others appear as though they are endorsing products to which they have no connection with. "The growing appearance of deepfake attacks is significantly reshaping the threat landscape for organizations, financial institutions, celebrities, political figures, and even ordinary people," the security outfit's Vladimir Kropotov, Fyodor Yarochkin, Craig Gibson, and Stephen Hilt warned in research published on Tuesday. Specifically, corporations need to worry about deepfakes, we're told, as criminals begin using them to create fake individuals, such as job seekers to scam their way into roles, or impersonate executives on video calls to hoodwink employees into transferring company funds or data.

Caroline Grace has always enjoyed vintage technology. An IT tech in the Mid-Ohio Valley, they collect retro games, laser discs and cassette tapes, but mostly, vinyl records. Their collection is in the thousands, and hundreds of those are video game soundtracks. "I've been a big fan of games all my life," says Grace. "Some of my earliest memories are playing games like Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap and Goof Troop with my dad and brother. I get positive feelings from listening to the Wonder Boy III music now. I have a lot of pleasant memories of playing it with my family back in the day."