A secretive group of North Koreans have been securing IT jobs across the US and UK, using AI tools and local accomplices to obscure their true identities. 

"Their goal? Cashing in on top tech salaries to funnel millions of dollars back to Pyongyang for its weapons programme," said Politico.

How do they get hired?  
The North Korean nationals set up fake LinkedIn profiles, claiming to be from "countries including Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Ukraine, the US and Vietnam", said Bloomberg. Most are actually based in Russia and China, according to the US Department of Justice.

Their fake identities are carefully crafted, including "pseudonymous email, social media, payment platform and online job site accounts". Once hired, the North Korean workers are onboarded with their false credentials, sometimes including a US "front" address where American accomplices can receive company laptops and keep them running.

What's the goal?  
To earn money for the North Korean regime. IT worker teams "are set 'earnings quotas' by Kim Jong Un's regime", Michael Barnhart, from risk management firm DTEX, told Wired. The workers operate on behalf of several North Korean military and intelligence organisations, and the money they earn is channelled back into them.

In one operation, shut down by US authorities in February, North Korean IT workers had infiltrated more than 300 US companies, and collectively earned more than $17 million, often in cryptocurrency or laundered through banks in third countries like China.

What's being done about it?  
Given the difficulty of targeting suspects based in North Korea or allied countries like Russia and China, US law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning their attention to the accomplices who help pull off the scams. In January, two US nationals were arrested for running so-called "laptop farms", which receive and operate company devices on behalf of North Korean operatives.

Meanwhile, IT firms in the US and Europe are being urged to insist on face-to-face or video interviews with potential hires. But even that might not be enough: it's reportedly becoming increasingly common for applicants to use real-time AI deepfake technology to change their appearance on video calls.

Former childminder Lucy Connolly has become a cause célèbre for the political right since she was handed a 31-month prison sentence for inciting racial hatred online.

In her post on X, on the day of the Southport attacks, the 41-year-old wife of a Conservative councillor called for "mass deportation now" and urged people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers. Before she deleted it three hours later, it had been viewed 310,000 times. Although many have criticised the length of her sentence, this week the Court of Appeal ruled there was "no arguable basis" for it to be judged "manifestly excessive".

'Ruthless' speech laws
Britain's "supposed adherence" to free speech is being "whittled away year by year", said Christian Calgie in the Daily Express, and Connolly has become a "martyr for those pushing back at this disgraceful erosion". The government is releasing prisoners because space is at an "all-time low", but our "best legal bods" think that "keeping a mother in prison for over a year over a tweet" is "sensible" and "fair". Compared with lighter sentences for child rapists and domestic abusers, her treatment does look "unduly harsh", said The Daily Telegraph.

The state has "endless compassion for habitual criminals", always "willing to give them 'one more chance'", said Ed West in The Spectator. But it is "utterly ruthless against those who breach its speech codes". This "shouldn't be a right-wing talking point", but one that concerns every British citizen.

'Populist bonfires'
"Leftists" like me deplore "dehumanising" and "violent language", said India Block in London's The Standard. But prison isn't the place to "disabuse" Connolly of prejudice. She should have been "offered the chance to take accountability, to meet and make amends to the people she wished harm upon". Let's not forget that targeting migrants is "a hobby horse for politicians". Connolly was "encouraged" to hate them and then "punished" for wishing them harm.

Suella Braverman, Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch have all spoken up for Connolly – but all three care more about lighting "populist bonfires" than the actual plight of women in prison, said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper. This furore is "nothing to do with fairness", and everything to do with "right-wing drives" to "politicise and interfere with the criminal justice system".

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Jeremy Corbyn can save Britain from Starmer
Aaron Bastani in The Telegraph
New polling putting Labour at just 22% of the vote may seem like "the nadir for Keir Starmer", writes Aaron Bastani, but "things could deteriorate further". As the government "moves to the Right", the Greens "can pick off seats" in "more liberal" areas – and then there are Jeremy Corbyn's hints about "a new Left party". Labour will fare "as badly as the Tories" unless "the Left, and the Greens, can build a coordinated electoral alternative".

Words won't save Gaza – The West must stop enabling Israel's war
Humza Yousaf on Al Jazeera
The "welcome" UK government statements on Israel's "horrific crimes in Gaza" come "after more than a year and a half of relentless civilian casualties", writes Scotland's former first minister Humza Yousaf. "How many innocent lives" could have been spared if this criticism had come earlier? Countries that "supported, armed, and funded Israel" are now confronting "their own complicity". But "moral outrage alone is insufficient": it must be "backed by meaningful measures".

Kim Kardashian's success in law proves her misogynistic haters wrong
Brooke Ivey Johnson in Metro
Kim Kardashian has "completed California's rigorous law apprenticeship path", writes Brooke Ivey Johnson, and she's done it while running a "business empire and raising four children". But "instead of applause", the reality TV star is facing "ridicule", fuelled by misogynistic "resentment of a woman who refuses to stay in the box she was put in". Yes, she has "immense wealth and privilege" but the lack of "financial incentive" makes her dedication all the more "admirable".