International
On Monday, a German apartment block in Bavaria was tormented by an unlikely villain when inhabitants awoke past midnight to hear their doorbell ringing.
They found no one at the door and initially assumed teenagers were pulling a klingelstreich, literally “bell prank.”
“We’d gone to bed,” a tenant named Lisa told German tabloid Bild, “but we don’t tend to answer the door after 10 p.m., so when the bell rang, I tried to ignore it. I thought it might be the kids from the abandoned house over the road.”
At first, she suspected youths were ringing the doorbell and fleeing the scene, but when it kept ringing, she became nervous:
“But then my sister-in-law who lives upstairs called, and asked whether our bell was ringing, as hers wouldn’t stop,” Lisa said. “It kept ringing even as we telephoned and despite the fact no one could be seen at the door. We became really uneasy. That’s when we decided to call the police.”
Two police officers were dispatched to the apartment, but the noise persisted. Further inspection revealed a slug crawling up and down the metal bell plate, tripping the sensors.
In a statement, a police spokesperson in Schwabach, Bavaria said the culprit had been, “been brought down to size, taught about its territory boundaries and placed on a nearby stretch of grass”.
National
New Mexico unveiled a new program launching in November that will make it the first state to provide free childcare to all residents. The program is expected to save families around $12,000 per child per year regardless of income.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the program earlier this week:
“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”
The new program is part of an effort to bring down child care costs that started in 2019 with the launch of the Early Childhood Education and Care Department.
The state will establish a $13 million loan fund with plans to expand current facilities, recruit home-based providers, and incentivize programs to pay their staff $18 an hour at minimum.
The response to the plan has been mixed, with Republican state Rep. Rebecca Dow telling the Albuquerque Journal that she believes child care vouchers should be reserved for children at risk for abuse and neglect.
New Mexico officials hope the program will result in 55 new child care centers and 1,120 new home-based childcare options.
Local
In an alleged hacking scheme, 10Oklahoma homeowner associations have lost millions of dollars. The FBI is currently investigating the case.
According to the initial report from the Oklahoma City Police Department, hackers sent malicious text messages to the owner of Hoppis Real Estate Services, the organization that manages the victimized HOA accounts.
Sheila Brown, owner of Hoppis Real Estate Services, first filed the report in July.
She told police she received suspicious messages starting on July 2, and continuing over several days along with a steady stream of spam calls. The messages asked her to approve or deny account changes.
Brown called police on July 15 after her bank called to ask about wire transfers involving large amounts of money.
Patrick Allmond, digit expert with Stop Doing Nothing Media told KFOR this attack is one of the most severe he has heard of lately:
“This one was probably one of the worst ones I’ve seen recently,” Allmond said. “These are called social engineering hacks, where they get some information here and some information here, and they have to fill in the other puzzles. That’s really what I think happened there. This was a very clever hack.”
The largest losses include $2 million stolen from Quail Springs HOA, $500,000 from The Meadow HOA, $230,000 from Springs at Greenleaf Trails, $130,000 from 6000 Penn HOA. A few smaller accounts lost money as well, bringing the total to $3.1 million in losses.
No funds have been recovered and the FBI is still investigating.
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