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new video loaded: How the Government Shutdown Will Be Felt
By Karoun Demirjian, Karen Hanley, June Kim, Gabriel Blanco and Whitney Shefte
October 11, 2025
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Karoun Demirjian, Karen Hanley, June Kim, Gabriel Blanco and Whitney Shefte
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As ICE ramps up for more deportations under President Trump, Nicholas Nehamas, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, talks with applicants at an ICE recruitment fair in Texas.
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Nicholas Nehamas, Kassie Bracken, Christina Shaman, June Kim and Andrew Cagle
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NEW YORK — Nineteen people including 17 New York City and New York state public employees were charged in a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday with submitting fraudulent applications for funds intended to help small businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic.
The accused, including employees of New York City’s police department, correction department and public school system, listed themselves as owners of businesses that in some cases did not exist in their applications for funds through the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Paycheck Protection Program, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.
The defendants collectively stole more than $1.5 million from the SBA and financial institutions that issued SBA-guaranteed loans, prosecutors said.
One defendant, a school paraprofessional, claimed in her loan application that she owned a hair and nail salon with 45 employees and $500,000 in annual revenue, according to the complaint. Bank records showed that the defendant in fact had no significant source of income other than her Department of Education salary, investigators said.
The paraprofessional received $150,000 from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and spent the money on a trip to Las Vegas and purchases at Louis Vuitton, Macy’s and other retailers, according to the complaint.
“Scheming to steal Government funds intended to help small businesses weather a national emergency is offensive,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release. “And, as public employees, these folks should have known better. This Office will continue to prosecute those who use fraud to line their pockets with taxpayer money.”
The defendants were charged with wire fraud, and nine were also charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. One defendant was charged with aggravated identity theft. Information on their attorneys wasn’t immediately available.
Auditors say the speed with which federal emergency loan programs were set up in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 left the programs vulnerable to fraud, though millions of legitimate businesses benefited from the programs.
“There’s no doubt they’ve had a positive impact. However, the management of these programs needs to be dramatically improved,” U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro said last year.
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LONDON — A former security guard at the British embassy in Berlin has admitted spying for Russia and faces up to 14 years in prison.
David Ballantyne Smith, 58, pleaded guilty to eight charges under the Official Secrets Act. Prosecutors say he gave Gen. Maj. Sergey Chukhurov, Russia’s military attache in Berlin, information about the activities, identities, addresses and phone numbers of British civil servants.
Smith also collected intelligence, some of it classed secret, on the operation and layout of the embassy, which prosecutors said would be useful to “an enemy, namely the Russian state.”
Smith admitted guilt during a hearing last week at London’s Central Criminal Court, but the pleas were covered by reporting restrictions until Friday, when prosecutors dropped a ninth charge that Smith had denied.
Prosecutors say Smith was motivated by a hatred of Britain and its embassy, where he had worked for eight years, and had expressed sympathy with Russian authorities. They claim he was angry that the embassy flew the rainbow flag in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Smith’s lawyer, Matthew Ryder, said his client denied prosecutors’ description of “why he did what he did and the seriousness of the allegations.” He said Smith did not have “a negative intention towards the U.K.”
Smith was arrested by German police at his home in Potsdam, southwest of Berlin in August 2021 and extradited to the U.K. in April.
He will be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum 14-year sentence.
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LONDON — The British government insisted Sunday it has robust cybersecurity for government officials, after a newspaper reported that former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ phone was hacked while she was U.K. foreign minister.
The Mail on Sunday said that the hack was discovered when Truss was running to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister in the summer. It said the security breach was kept secret by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the head of the civil service.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said Russian spies were suspected of the hack.
The U.K. government spokesperson declined to comment on security arrangements, but said it had “robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats,” including regular security briefings for ministers.
Opposition parties demanded an independent investigation into the hack, and into the leak of the information to a newspaper.
“Was Liz Truss’s phone hacked by Russia, was there a news blackout and if so why?” said Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran. “If it turns out this information was withheld from the public to protect Liz Truss’ leadership bid, that would be unforgivable.”
Labour Party law-and-order spokesperson Yvette Cooper said “the story raises issues around cybersecurity.”
“It’s why cybersecurity has to be taken so seriously by everyone across government, the role of hostile states,” she told Sky News. “But also the allegations about whether a Cabinet minister has been using a personal phone for serious government business, and serious questions about why this information or this story has been leaked or briefed right now.”
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