Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. I’m Bill Thomas, we’re just hours into a brand new year, we have some urgent stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.
A critical financial arm of the federal government is breached by overseas hackers, President-elect Donald Trump issues an important warning regarding several of his Cabinet nominees, and the mayor of our nation’s capital makes a surprising revelation about her recent meeting with the incoming commander-in-chief.
Also, a federal court makes a consequential ruling concerning the prisoners allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and troubling new information to share with you today regarding far too many people who simply can’t keep up with their mounting credit card debt.
Chinese Hackers Breach US Treasury Department
The U.S. Department of the Treasury says that earlier in December, Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached a third-party software service provider called Beyond Trust, remotely accessed a number of Treasury workstations, and stole a collection of unclassified documents.In a letter sent earlier this week to lawmakers, the department said that the hackers were able to bypass the agency’s security features to tap into their files.
The department did not specify how many workstations had been compromised or exactly what kind of documents the hackers obtained. However, the letter said that the service provider has now been taken out of the loop and that at this time, there is no evidence indicating that the hackers still have access to Treasury Department information.
The agency also says it’s working with both the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to investigate the scope of the hack.
Incidentally, this latest breach takes place as U.S. officials continue to analyze the scope of a number of other significant cybersecurity breaches related to Chinese state-backed hacking groups.
Just last week, the White House said that recent cyberattacks have affected nine major telecom companies, including both Verizon and AT&T. Additionally, security experts are urging people in senior government positions to encrypt all of their exchanges and to assume that all of their communications are at risk of being intercepted.
Trump Issues Warning on Potential Delays for Cabinet Nominees
Yesterday on social media, Trump said that Senate Democrats are already organizing to “improperly stall and delay” the confirmation proceedings for many of his Cabinet nominees, and that very soon, they’ll begin to try “all sorts of tricks” to bog down the hearings.Trump went on to say that his administration has a country to run and many big problems to solve, and that Republicans must be both smart enough and tough enough not to allow them to do that.
The president-elect also pointed out that he just won the election by a “historic landslide,” and that he’s been given a mandate from the American people to get things done.
To refresh your memory, Republicans will have a 53–47 advantage over Democrats in the Senate, the chamber that confirms presidential appointments, and a majority is needed for a nominee to be approved.
By the way, some of the nominees who are likely to face tough confirmation hearings include Pete Hegseth, who’s Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense; Tulsi Gabbard, whom the president-elect named to be his director of national intelligence; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s been tapped by incoming commander-in-chief to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.
DC Mayor Reports Great Meeting With Trump
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser says she and Trump had a “great meeting” to talk about his upcoming term in office, and that the two of them found a significant amount to agree upon regarding the District of Columbia.She said that both of them want Washington to be the best, most beautiful city in the world, and that they each want the capital city to reflect the strength of our nation.
She also said they specifically discussed a large range of issues, including how to best coordinate the federal workforce, how to make better use of underutilized federal buildings, and areas where both the local and federal governments could collaborate.
Bowser went on to say she’s very optimistic that she’ll continue to find common ground with Trump during his second term, and that the city looks forward to supporting a successful inauguration on Jan. 20.
By the way, the mayor’s comments appear to represent a significant change in tone from a prior contentious relationship between the two, which came to a peak in 2020 during widespread riots and protests that were sparked by the death of George Floyd.
Meanwhile, just before the election, Trump called Washington “a very dangerous and badly managed place,” and he promised to make it “safe, clean, and beautiful” once again.
Appeals Court Upholds Deal That Removes Death Penalty for Alleged 9/11 Mastermind
The U.S. Department of Defense’s appeals court has just turned down an attempt by the Pentagon to rescind the plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as the plea deals for two of his alleged accomplices.Earlier this week, a panel of judges said that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin did not have the authority to cancel the deals. They also determined that even if he did, he waited too long to act, because lawyers for the alleged attackers had already started meeting the requirements that had been outlined in their pretrial plea agreements.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced that a military court official who is handling the 9/11 trials had signed off on the deals, in which three people accused of participating in the deadly attacks agreed to plead guilty to all of their charged offenses in exchange for the removal of the death penalty.
However, a short time later, Austin took charge of the case and withdrew the pretrial agreements. Last month, a judge initially ruled that the secretary lacked the authority to withdraw the agreements.
The Pentagon appealed that ruling, leading to this week’s decision, which paves the way for all three of the accused to avoid the death penalty and spend the rest of their lives in prison.
US Credit Card Defaults Reach Highest Point Since 2010
During the first nine months of 2024, credit card lenders wrote off nearly $50 billion in substantially late loan balances, a 50 percent increase from the same period in 2023 and the highest level in 14 years.A recent report says that consumers are dealing with both elevated interest rates and higher living expenses, which are leading to the big jump in credit card write-offs. It also says that nearly $40 billion of additional credit card balances remain overdue by at least one month, and that the trend continues to grow as consumers continue to spend.
One analyst pointed out that households with high incomes are fine, but that the bottom third of U.S. consumers are “tapped out.” He also noted that the spending power among lower-income borrowers has diminished as inflation continues to eat away at disposable income.
So you know, the increasing number of write-offs follows a period of strong consumer spending in the aftermath of pandemic-related shutdowns, when many Americans had boosted their savings and a great deal of lenders aggressively expanded their credit card offers.
Higher balances are now translating into steeper monthly interest obligations, adding financial strain to households that cannot fully pay off their debts.
For many Americans, what this really means is a triple squeeze of pricier goods, higher credit costs, and diminished savings.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the New Year’s Day edition, the Wednesday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
Don’t forget the News Brief Motto: We’re portable, affordable, and we’re always on-demand.
And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote, and this one comes to us from Oprah Winfrey, who said: “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
Oprah has done it all: talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and so much more.
For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.
Thank you for making us your one-stop source in 2025 for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.
Enjoy the remainder of your day, and we’ll see you right back here next time for another edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
For now, it’s imperative that we all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today. Bye for now.
