Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian role in attack on Americans, according to new evidence

U.S. officials in Vietnam were injured in a Havana Syndrome style attack ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2021 trip to Hanoi. Now, new evidence suggests Russia may have been involved — and that it may have been the Vietnamese themselves who were given technology that could have caused the injuries.

At the time, the U.S. embassy in Hanoi announced that a possible “anomalous health incident,” the federal government’s term for so-called Havana Syndrome attacks, was slowing Harris’s arrival in Vietnam. 60 Minutes has learned that 11 people reported being struck in separate incidents before Harris entered the country: two people who were officials at the American embassy in Hanoi, and nine people who were part of a Defense Department advance team preparing for Harris’s visit.

While at least some of the injured U.S. personnel were medevaced out of the country, Harris was unharmed and continued her trip to Hanoi after a three-hour delay in Singapore.

Symptoms of Havana Syndrome often include nausea, dizziness, migraines, and problems with vision and hearing that can persist over a long period of time. While U.S. officials cannot confirm what causes it, experts 60 Minutes has spoken with believe the incidents involve targeted sonic or microwave attacks.

60 Minutes has been investigating these attacks for more than five years. For the latest report, which aired on the broadcast this week, producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados teamed up with Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist who currently leads investigative work for The Insider. Grozev is well-known for his investigation into the poisoning of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

As 60 Minutes investigated the Hanoi incident, a source suggested that the Vietnamese themselves had been given some kind of technology that may have caused the “Havana Syndrome” attack. According to the source, the Vietnamese may have been told to use the technology to listen in on the Americans ahead of Harris’s trip — but they may not have known this the technology could harm the people they were using it on.

In his research, Grozev found a document that seems to indicate this theory may be correct.

Five months before Harris’s visit to Hanoi, an email was sent to the Security Council of Russia, the body of top Russian officials who head the country’s defense and security agencies.

According to Grozev, a document within the email shows that Russian intelligence lobbied for and received permission from President Vladimir Putin to provide exclusive technology to Vietnamese security services. Among the list of recommended technologies to be shared were “LRAD acoustic emitters” and “short-wave equipment for scanning the human body.”

LRAD, which stands for “long-range acoustic device,” is a military-grade sonic weapon that discharges a targeted beam of sound at extremely high volume. An LRAD device was used to thwart a pirate attack on a cruise ship in 2005, and since then, the U.S. military has used the devices to send warnings in the field, such as cautioning people away from an Army base perimeter. But when left on at its highest volume, some LRAD systems can produce a sound pressure level of 162 decibels. The human pain threshold is about 130 decibels.

Based on his research, Grozev said he suspects Russia is sending weapons technology like this, which may be used in Havana Syndrome attacks, to foreign governments.

“I believe that Russia is assisting other governments with some operations that those governments may want to do on their own, and in this way establishing loyalty from these governments for future operations that Russia might need on their territory,” Grozev told 60 Minutes.

Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Edgreen ran an investigation for the Defense Intelligence Agency into anomalous health incidents, which have been referred to as Havana Syndrome attacks because they were first reported by American officials based in the U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2016. He told 60 Minutes he also believes Russians were involved in the 2021 attack in Vietnam.

“They saw us getting closer and closer to Cuba, and they wanted to stop it…” Edgreen said. “Then they tried to follow up and do the same thing with Vietnam, another long-term strategic ally to Hanoi, by disrupting Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to Vietnam.”

While running the military investigation into anomalous health incidents, Edgreen said the Pentagon supported his investigation into whether Russia was behind the attacks. But the Trump and Biden administrations set the bar for proof impossibly high, he said.

Grozev believes the U.S. government would require a very high threshold of certainty before they could acknowledge the Kremlin’s role — because of what will happen if they do.

“Once you admit that this happened, it is a Pandora[‘s] box,” Grozev said. “It requires you to confront the fact that you have your arch enemy acting against your own people, your own intelligence workers, on your territory, and this is nothing other than a declaration of war.”

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Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian role in attack on Americans, according to new evidence

Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian role in attack on Americans, according to new evidence – CBS News

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Eleven U.S. officials were injured in a Havana Syndrome-style attack ahead of VP Kamala Harris’s 2021 trip to Hanoi. A newly discovered document suggests Russia may have been involved.

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Fulton County DA Fani Willis plans to take a lead role in trying Trump case

Two weeks after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis survived a bid by defense lawyers to have her disqualified from the Georgia election interference case, she has all but taken over the case personally, focusing intensely on legal strategy and getting her team in fighting form for trial.

In a significant move along these lines, according to a source close to her, Willis has decided to play a leading courtroom role herself in the sprawling conspiracy case against Donald Trump and 14 co-defendants.

“I think there are efforts to slow down the train, but the train is coming,” Willis said with characteristic bravado during impromptu remarks to CNN as she was leaving a Georgia Easter egg hunt on March 23.

“I guess my greatest crime is that I had a relationship with a man, but that’s not something I find embarrassing in any way,” she added.

Willis had just endured a lengthy legal soap opera after lawyers for one of the defendants filed a motion on Jan. 8 alleging that she had a clandestine romantic relationship with outside lawyer Nathan Wade, whom she had tapped to lead the case. Over two months of withering testimony and legal argument, Willis had intimate details of her private life publicly aired, her judgment and integrity questioned, and saw the most high-stakes prosecution of her career teeter on the brink of collapse because of an indiscretion in her personal life.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in court in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, March 1, 2024.

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In the end, Judge Scott McAfee ruled there was no actual conflict of interest that would have required disqualification of Willis and her entire office from the case. But he did conclude that Willis’ conduct created an “appearance of impropriety” that needed to be “cured” for her to continue. The solution was for Wade to resign from the case, which he did a few hours after the judge’s ruling.

Instead of replacing Wade with another lawyer from inside or outside the office, Willis is stepping up her own role in quarterbacking the case, CBS News has learned. She has already plunged into the nuts and bolts of trial strategy, including starting to lay out how evidence, including witnesses and documents, will be presented, a process known as “order of proof.”

At the same time, she is thinking about how to communicate the stakes of a case about protecting the democratic rights of Georgians — a far more abstract concept than typical murder or gang prosecutions — to a Fulton County jury.

Moreover, according to one knowledgeable source, Willis will now be the primary point of contact for defense lawyers in any future plea negotiations, a role that Wade had previously played.

Perhaps most consequentially, she is gaming out her own role in trying the case. Her appearance in the courtroom will not just be symbolic. Willis is seriously considering handling opening statements for the prosecution and examining key witnesses herself, according to sources familiar with her thinking, who requested anonymity to speak freely about her approach to the case.

Those who know the pugnacious and competitive DA well say a star turn in the courtroom — in the only case against Trump that will be televised — may put the distracting disqualification drama fully behind her. They say she is intent on shifting the public’s focus back onto Trump and his co-defendants for their alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election. It was a strategy she already showcased when she testified combatively in the disqualification hearing last month.

“You’re confused, you think I’m on trial,” she told defense lawyer Ashley Merchant. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election.”

Willis’ stepped-up, high-profile public role in the case would also come as she runs for reelection in Fulton County. While it seems unlikely the trial would begin before the general election in November, she will likely have opportunities to argue pre-trial motions and procedural matters before then.

Any remarks about the case she makes inside the courtroom carry far less risk than whatever she might be tempted to say in the public arena, where she feels less restrained. She has already been admonished by McAfee for making “unorthodox” public remarks. The judge has hinted that he might impose a gag order on the case.

“Given the fact that she just barely walked away legally unscathed and that there is an appeal, I think a little extra caution would pay off dividends,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor of law at Georgia State College of Law, who has been following the election interference case closely. But at the same time, Kreis said Willis has every “right and prerogative” to try the case herself and called doing so a potential “rehabilitation moment.”

Willis was always likely to play at least some public-facing role in the trial, if for no other reason than to show her constituents how seriously she was taking a case that she regards as core to their rights as Americans and Georgians, according to a close friend of Willis’. But it was only after going through the searing two-month disqualification ordeal that she decided to play a leading, if not the leading trial role, sources tell CBS News.

Willis earned a reputation as a courtroom practitioner over a two-decade career of trying and winning hundreds of murder, rape and gang cases, but also leading some of the most complex prosecutions ever brought in Georgia. Chief among them was the Atlanta Public Schools cheating case, a Georgia RICO prosecution — involving the same conspiracy statute under which Trump and his co-defendants were charged — against more than a dozen teachers, principals and administrators. All but one of the 12 defendants who went to trial were convicted in what still stands as the longest trial in Georgia history.

“She combines a level of preparation unmatched by any attorney I have ever seen, with a very rare ability to connect with a jury at that gut level,” said Charley Bailey, a former Fulton County assistant DA who has tried cases with Willis and is a close friend.

Daniel Klaidman

Daniel Klaidman, an investigative reporter based in New York, is the former editor-in-chief of Yahoo News and former managing editor of Newsweek. He has over two decades of experience covering politics, foreign affairs, national security and law.

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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years over role in FTX collapse

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years over role in FTX collapse – CBS News

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Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the sudden collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. Prosecutors say he defrauded customers out of more than $8 billion, one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. Errol Barnett reports.

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Zoe Saldaña takes on new role in “The Absence of Eden,” directed by husband Marco Perego

Zoe Saldaña is known for starring in big sci-fi franchises like “Avatar,” Star Trek” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Now, she’s taking on a new role, playing an undocumented immigrant who flees her home in Mexico for sanctuary. The film, “The Absence of Eden,” is directed and co-written by her husband, Marco Perego.

The movie does not take a political stance, the couple says, as it showcases the polarizing issue of immigration.

“I was really proud of him, that out of all the subjects that he could be, you know, building a story around, he chose immigration and the angle of humanity, which keeps us very neutral, but also keeps us in the form of art of telling stories that are compelling about human beings, about people,” Saldaña said.

The inspiration for Perego started with a personal project in 2016. He created a sculpture about immigrant children who died traveling from Syria to Italy. Perego collected 714 pairs of shoes to represent those children and filled them with concrete. It is now in a museum in Vancouver, Canada.

“For me it was, okay, how I can talk about humanity in more of a global aspect,” he said.

Perego spent two years researching and traveling to help tell this story for “The Absence of Eden.” He traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border with his co-writer multiple times.

“My biggest goal was to be as honest as possible when I was telling the story,” he said.

Saldaña explained it wasn’t only about sitting down with people who have been compelled to cross the border.

“It’s also people who work in law enforcement that have a duty to fulfill and sometimes that conflicts with their moral code or how they’re feeling in the core about what they’re doing.”

Zoe Saldaña and Marco Perego talk about their new movie “The Absence of Eden,” on CBS Mornings, in which Saldaña stars and Perego directs.

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Saldaña said they may be uncomfortable conversations, but she thinks it’s important to have all sides to properly understand the issue.

“I feel like the issue of immigration has been an ongoing issue,” she said. “I think that what’s important in my opinion is for us not to forget as Americans that this nation was founded by immigrants.”

As for working on set as husband and wife for the first time, the couple joked about a few moments they disagreed.

“When she speaks Spanish, I’m in trouble,” Perego joked.

As time progressed, Saldaña said, the two found a working rhythm.

“I feel like the more experience we have, it’ll continue to get better and better,” Saldaña said.

“The Absence of Eden” hits theaters on April 12.

Kelsie Hoffman

Kelsie Hoffman is a push and platform editor on CBS News’ Growth and Engagement team. She previously worked on Hearst Television’s National Desk and as a local TV reporter in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

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Known for starring in sci-fi franchises, Zoe Saldaña takes on new role in the “Absence of Eden”

Known for starring in sci-fi franchises, Zoe Saldaña takes on new role in the “Absence of Eden” – CBS News

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Actor Zoe Saldaña is known for her roles in big sci-fi franchises like “Avatar” and “Star Trek.” Now, she’s taking on a new role as an undocumented immigrant in “The Absence of Eden,” a film directed and co-written by her husband, Marco Perego.

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Jake Gyllenhaal says Christopher Nolan personally telling him he lost Batman role was ‘pretty cool’

Jake Gyllenhaal recently opened up on “The Howard Stern Show” about what it was like losing two major roles during the final rounds of casting: Batman in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and Christian in Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!”

On the latter film, the audition process came down to Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger and Ewan McGregor. It’s here where Gyllenhaal first heard of Ledger, who would later become his co-star in “Brokeback Mountain.”

“What I felt was disappointment when I didn’t get it. Both Heath and I were disappointed,” Gyllenhaal said. “But that’s Ewan McGregor’s part. You learn to go, ‘There’s another one. I can try and go in and audition for another one. I’ll get something else.’ You keep that attitude.”

Gyllenhaal maintained that healthy mindset when he lost out on “Batman Begins” a few years after “Moulin Rouge!” fell through. David S. Goyer, who came up with the story for “Batman Begins” and co-wrote the script with Nolan, recently confirmed rumors that Gyllenhaal was his personal top pick to play Batman in Nolan’s trilogy. Christian Bale ultimately won the role.

“To [Nolan’s] credit and to Baz [Luhrmann’s] credit, both of those directors called me personally to tell me [I didn’t get the role],” Gyllenhaal said. “And they will tell you why.”

“When you get that far, there’s a real legitimacy to you potentially getting something,” he said. “It’s not like they’re going, ‘Oh, thanks so much.’ They are going, ‘I saw these aspects of you that I really wanted in the role and are wonderful, but in the end I ended up moving this way because it matches better with this person who is opposite you or would be opposite you. The color of their hair or their height, whatever it is!! There are all these non factors that really are the inexplicable stuff that if you start to pick away at it doesn’t work, it’s not healthy.”

“To me, I just go: ‘Look at how far you got! So just try and keeping going.’ That’s what I felt,” the actor continued. “I remember getting a call from Christopher Nolan and thinking, ‘I just got a call personally from Christopher Nolan. That’s pretty cool. I’ve gotten pretty far. I went from them going they aren’t sure [about me] to a call saying they’re really thinking about you for this movie. So okay, I should keep going. I should just keep going.”

Gyllenhaal was coming off the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow” when Nolan considered him for “Batman Begins.” Although he didn’t get to play the Caped Crusader, losing the role did open the door for him to take acclaimed films such as “Brokeback Mountain” and “Jarhead,” both of which opened the same year as Nolan’s comic book tentpole. Gyllenhaal recently told Screen Rant that he’d still be interested in playing Batman.

“Oh, man. That’s a classic [role]. It’s an honor,” Gyllenhaal answered. “Speaking of playing roles that other incredible actors have played in the past … When I think about it, I’m going to play Iago in ‘Othello’ with Denzel Washington, and I think about like the history of actors that have played that role throughout time, and I’m intimidated by that. So that’s the first level. That’s what I’m working on right now. But of course. It would be an honor always. Those types of things and those roles are classics.”

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Former Minneapolis officer sentenced to nearly 5 years on state charge for role in George Floyd’s death

Tou Thao, the last former Minneapolis police officer convicted in state court for his role in the killing of George Floyd, was sentenced Monday to 4 years and 9 months.

Thao had testified that he merely served as a “human traffic cone” when he held back concerned bystanders who gathered as former Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes while the Black man pleaded for his life on May 25, 2020.

A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.”

Floyd’s killing touched off protests worldwide and forced a national reckoning of police brutality and racism.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill found Thao guilty in May of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.

In his 177-page ruling, Cahill said Thao’s actions separated Chauvin and two other former officers from the crowd, including an emergency medical technician, allowing his colleagues to continue restraining Floyd and preventing bystanders from providing medical aid.

“There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote.

He concluded: “Thao’s actions were even more unreasonable in light of the fact that he was under a duty to intervene to stop the other officers’ excessive use of force and was trained to render medical aid.”

Thao had rejected a plea bargain on the state charge, saying “it would be lying” to plead guilty when he didn’t think he was in the wrong. He instead agreed to let Cahill decide the case based on evidence from Chauvin’s 2021 murder trial and the federal civil rights trial in 2022 of Thao and former Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.

That trial in federal court ended in convictions for all three. Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges instead of going to trial a second time, while Lane and Kueng pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter.

The sentence Cahill handed down Monday will run concurrently with Thao’s 3 1/2-year sentence on his separate conviction on a federal civil rights charge, which an appeals court upheld on Friday. His state sentence was more than the 4 years recommended under Minnesota state guidelines.

Lane and Kueng received 3 and 3 1/2-year state sentences respectively, which they are serving concurrently with their federal sentences of 2 1/2 years and 3 years. Thao is Hmong American, while Kueng is Black and Lane is white.

Minnesota inmates generally serve two-thirds of their sentences in prison and one-third on parole. There is no parole in the federal system but inmates can shave time off their sentences with good behavior.

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AfD role fuels Germany’s far right fears

A former German lawmaker who also served as a judge led members of a far-right terrorist group that was plotting to overthrow the government on a tour of the Reichstag, home of the country’s parliament, according to prosecutors.

The new allegations come as Germany faces the most serious challenge by a far-right party since World War II, one expert said, with the hardline Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party climbing to second place in opinion polls.

The former lawmaker at the center of the alleged coup plot belonged to the AfD, which is enjoying greater mainstream success even as the country’s intelligence chief warns it is becoming more extreme.

Reconnaissance tour

The charges, released Monday in a filing from Germany’s Federal Court, allege that three members of the far-right Reichsbürger movement toured the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin in September 2022 and took photos and video of nearby government offices — authorities say this was preparation for a violent attack.

Three months later, 25 people from the Reichsbürger movement were arrested after police discovered details of a planned armed coup in the advanced stages of planning, including a government structure to replace Germany’s federal republic.

One of those charged Dec. 7 served as a lawmaker for the AfD from 2017 to 2021, which gave her the right to enter the Reichstag along with up to six others. The document does not name the suspect but mentions that she had been a judge in Berlin.

“Everyone involved in this operation knew that it could only be carried out by using deadly force of arms against the police and security forces of the German Bundestag,” the document said, referring to Germany’s federal parliament.

The group planned for 16 people to force their way into the building, the court document said, and had acquired weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and restraining devices. The former lawmaker was found to have a revolver and a semi-automatic rifle with a telescopic sight, as well as around 7,000 cartridges, according to prosecutors.

Another person charged with involvement in the coup is a former commander of a parachute battalion in the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces.

Some have ridiculed the Reichsbürger group for its eccentric, mostly older members, including its alleged leader, Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, with his obscure and archaic royal title. Reuss descends from the House of Reuss, which controlled a portion of eastern Germany until the formation of the modern country after 1918.

He has repeated an antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jews being responsible for the end of European kingdoms and believes that the current German state is illegitimate and void because of agreements made with Allied forces after World War II.

“In Germany itself, there were quite a few people who said, ‘Was this really serious? Look at the people, look how old they are.’ Like they were basically crazy pensioners,” Peter Neumann, an expert on extremism in Germany at King’s College London, told NBC News.

“The reality is, we’re now seeing the hard evidence that they were actually trying to plan a serious operation, to have guns, to scope the building.”

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Alex Murdaugh accomplice sentenced to 7 years in prison for role in fraud scheme

The man who once headed a highly respected bank in the South Carolina Lowcountry will spend seven years in federal prison for helping convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh steal nearly $2 million from clients’ legal settlements.

Russell Laffitte was sentenced Tuesday after a jury found him guilty of six charges related to wire and bank fraud back in November. The ex-CEO of Palmetto State Bank became the first of the disgraced former attorney’s accomplices to face prison time following the June 2021 shooting deaths that stemmed from sprawling investigations into the Murdaugh family finances.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel also ordered Laffitte to pay more than $3 million in restitution, local media reported. Murdaugh will cover a piece of that sum. The former banker has said he will appeal the decision.

Laffitte similarly came from a prominent family that had built an upstanding reputation for Palmetto State Bank. The Independent Banks of South Carolina even honored Laffitte as the banker of the year in 2019.

But that good standing tanked over his actions as the court-appointed safeguard for settlement money that Murdaugh won for some of his most vulnerable clients. Prosecutors argued he used the role to elaborately pocket tens of thousands of dollars and collect as much as $450,000 in untaxable fees. The position also allowed him to send large chunks toward Murdaugh — who had grown desperate to repay mounting loans as an opioid addiction further depleted his accounts.

Laffitte acknowledged by name each victim sitting in the Charleston federal courthouse on Tuesday, local media reported. He apologized for not fulfilling his duties to them. He apologized to the judge for erring in his judgment. And he apologized to Palmetto State Bank customers for failing them.

Still, Laffitte continued to maintain his innocence. He has insisted for months instead that he didn’t know he was committing crimes and was manipulated by a major customer.

The defense sought a reduced sentence of three to five years imprisonment. Relatives, friends and business acquaintances vouched for his character in letters submitted to court. His lawyers pointed to his professional ruin and lack of prior criminal record as evidence that a stiff penalty is not necessary to deter future crimes.

“In addition, the name ‘Russell Laffitte’ is now known throughout South Carolina and beyond, and not in a good way — Russell will be forevermore tied to Mr. Murdaugh and known infamously as ‘the Murdaugh banker,” they wrote in a July 28 memo.

Prosecutors asked the judge to put Laffitte behind bars for at least nine years. Rebuffing the claims of ignorance, they noted that the diverted checks were made payable to Palmetto State Bank and not Laffitte as the overseer of the funds. The sophisticated move, they argued, intentionally concealed the final destination.

A lengthier prison stay is also necessary to atone for the damaged public trust in banking, prosecutors wrote in a July 27 memo.

“The Government does not dispute that Murdaugh is the more culpable actor in the criminal conspiracy, or that Murdaugh benefited more from the scheme,” the prosecution wrote. “But the Defendant was the only person who could have stopped him. Instead, the Defendant enabled him. Repeatedly.”

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