Yesterday (Friday), a California court sentenced two Chinese men to prison after they admitted trying to recruit members of the US military to spy for Beijing.
Liren Lai and Yuanxi Chen were each sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, with three years' probation after their release, after pleading guilty to acting on the orders of China's Ministry of State Security.
The US Department of Justice stated that the two men carried out secret intelligence activities within the United States, which included facilitating “dead mail” operations to deliver money in exchange for information related to US national security.
They also collected information about American military personnel and installations, and sought to recruit intelligence elements from within the ranks of the American army.
“Let this ruling serve as a clear warning: If you attempt to endanger the safety and security of our military personnel, our citizens, or our nation, justice will befall you,” said Roman Rozjawski, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.
Lai, who entered the United States on a tourist visa, recruited Chen, a permanent resident of the United States, and initially served as an intermediary between him and Chinese intelligence officers, before Chen began receiving orders directly from his directing officer.
The Ministry of Justice explained that the two men had been working, since at least May 2021, for an entity affiliated with the Chinese government, responsible for carrying out foreign intelligence operations and counter-espionage activities.
They were arrested in June 2025. The two men pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the Minister of Justice, as well as acting as agents of a foreign government without providing the required notification.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump participated in an election rally with his Republican supporters in Florida, while former President Bill Clinton delivered a speech to Democrats in the neighboring state of Mississippi. Both urged voters to go to the polls in the midterm elections, which will determine which party takes control of Congress.
“This is the most important midterm election ever,” Trump told the crowd in Daytona. Just one hour earlier, Clinton, during a speech he delivered in the city of Tupelo, expressed a similar opinion, referring to a third American president, who belongs to the Republican Party.
Clinton's speech included: “My friend George Bush once said: Democracy corrects its own course. “And we are about to find out in Mississippi whether that is true or not,” concluding his speech by calling on those present to vote for the Democratic Senate candidate, Scott Collum.
The elections will determine whether the last two years of Trump's term in the White House will go smoothly with the support of a Republican-controlled Congress, or whether he will face obstacles and opposition from Democrats.
An Associated Press analysis of voting data showed that about 10 million additional Americans cast early ballots five days before the election, compared to the same period in the 2022 elections.
Today, Friday, US federal authorities announced charges against four other people for participating in a criminal intimidation campaign targeting officials at the University of Michigan, with the aim of forcing the university to sever its financial ties with Israel.
The new indictment comes about five months after eight pro-Palestinian activists were charged with conspiracy against the backdrop of threats and acts of sabotage that targeted the homes of officials, some companies, and the Jewish Federation in Detroit.
Investigators shed light on several incidents that occurred over the past few years, including placing fake blood-stained bodies in the garden of the home of a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, and writing anti-Israel slogans in 2024 with paint on the house of Santa Ono, who was serving as the university’s president at the time.
The US Attorney's Office in Detroit said that two of the four new defendants have been arrested and will appear in court for the first time on Friday, while the other two have not been arrested.
The eight people who were charged in June pleaded not guilty.
US Attorney Jerome Gorgon Jr. said: “From Pharaoh to Hitler to Hamas, those who terrorized the Jews were the bad guys. “As Americans, our job is to fight the bad guys.”
