Nearly a year after Russian government hackers meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, researchers at cybersecurity firm Trend Micro zeroed in on a new sign of trouble: a group of suspect websites.

The sites mimicked a portal used by U.S. senators and their staffs, with easy-to-miss discrepancies. Emails to Senate users urged them to reset their passwords — an apparent attempt to steal them.

Once again, hackers on the outside of the American political system were probing for a way in.

“Their attack methods continue to take advantage of human nature and when you get into an election cycle the targets are very public ,” said Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research at Trend Micro.

Now the U.S. has entered a new election cycle. And the attempt to infiltrate the Senate network, linked to hackers aligned with Russia and brought to public attention in July, is a reminder of the risks, and the difficulty of assessing them.

Newly reported attempts at infiltration and social media manipulation point to Russia’s continued interest in meddling in U.S. politics. There is no clear evidence, experts said, of efforts by the Kremlin specifically designed to disrupt elections in November. But it wouldn’t take much to cause turmoil.

“It’s not a question of whether somebody is going to try to breach the system, to manipulate the system, to influence the system,” said Robby Mook, who managed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and co-directs a Harvard University projectto protect democracy from cyberattacks, in an interview earlier this year. “The question is: Are we…

Each Friday, volunteer medic Asmaa Qudih goes through a tense ritual: She prays, kisses her mother’s hand and packs a bag with medical supplies as she heads off to work at the weekly mass protests along Gaza’s border fence with Israel.

Treating the wounded has become dangerous for Gaza’s emergency workers. In the past five months, three medics were killed by Israeli army fire, while dozens more, including Qudih, were hurt by live fire or tear gas canisters.

Qudih, 35, says the weekly routine is terrifying, but that national pride, religious devotion and professional ambition drive her and other medics to risk their lives.

“As long as you go to work in the field, you expect at any time to get injured or killed,” she said on a recent Friday as she prepared to head to the frontier.

Before leaving home, she inspected her red backpack, filled with bandages, sticky tape and the saline spray that soothes the effects of tear gas on the eyes and skin. She hugged her young nieces and nephews, and then solemnly kissed her mother farewell.

“She goes against my will,” said her mother, Fatma, as she showered Qudih with blessings. “But this is her decision.”

In the latest violence, witnesses said volunteer paramedic Shorouq Msameh was shot in the back Friday while standing about 300 meters (yards) from a fence during a protest east of Rafah as demonstrators tried to launch a burning tire toward Israeli territory. Msameh, who was wearing a white coat marking her as a medic, was listed in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

The plight of Gaza’s medics lies at…

Emboldened far-right activists in Germany hope to make a Saturday protest a pivotal event that brings clusters of nationalists — from lawmakers to Hitler-saluting skinheads — together as a nationwide anti-migrant movement to challenge the political establishment.

Several groups scheduled rallies in the city of Chemnitz over the Aug. 26 killing there of a German citizen, allegedly by migrants from Syria and Iraq. The largest groups have invited concerned citizens to join them later as they converge for the first time, hoping a broader far-right drive emerges from their display of unity.

Counter-protesters organized a rival rally that could test authorities’ ability to keep the peace. The opposing camps confronted one another in Chemnitz on Monday, and scenes of vigilantes chasing foreigners in the city’s streets have shocked people in others parts of Germany since then.

The increasingly open displays of anti-migrant sentiment and violence reflect Germany’s ongoing effort to come to terms with an influx of more than 1 million refugees and migrants seeking jobs since 2015.

The right blames Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple problems. Some far-right supporters argue that migrants are responsible for an increase in serious crimes, especially attacks on women.

The anti-migrant sentiment has been particularly strong in Saxony, the state where Chemnitz is located and traditional strongholds of two groups that are seeking to launch a nationwide movement…

The Zion church in Beijing, one of the city’s largest unofficial Protestant “house” churches, has operated with relative freedom for years, hosting hundreds of worshippers every weekend in an expansive, specially renovated hall in north Beijing.

But in April, city authorities asked the church to install 24 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the building for “security”, Zion’s head pastor, Jin Mingri, told Reuters.

“They wanted to put cameras in the sanctuary where we worship. The church decided this was not appropriate,” Jin said over tea in his spacious, book-lined office. “Our services are a sacred time.”

When the request was refused, police and state security agents started harassing churchgoers, calling them, visiting them, contacting their workplace and asking them to promise not to go to church, according to statements from the church and interviews with attendees.

China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, Beijing has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.

China’s religious affairs bureau and the public security ministry did not respond to faxed requests for comment.

The Chinese government says greater oversight of religious activities is needed in order to regulate believers and facilitate worship, as well as to prevent foreign…