Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we’ve got some pivotal stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.
More details from the Trump assassination attempt have been released, RFK Jr. will remain on the ballot in a few battleground states, and lawsuits over a major data breach are piling up. Also, the Supreme Court rejects the Biden administration’s request regarding student loan relief, and the food you’re feeding your baby might not be as healthy as you think.
FBI Shares New Details From Investigation Into Trump Assassination Attempt
FBI officials say that Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who shot Trump, killed one man, and injured two other men, conducted 60 online searches about Trump and President Joe Biden, before registering for the July 13 rally in Butler County.Kevin Rojek, the FBI’s top official in western Pennsylvania, says agents observed a sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on different events, but noticed he became “hyper-focused” on the Trump rally and “looked at it as a target of opportunity.”
Meanwhile, officials say they have still not been able to determine Crooks’s motive for the attempted assassination against the former president, even though they gained some understanding of his mindset. Rojek says while the shooter’s computer activity showed he was interested in a mix of ideologies, it was not clear that he was motivated by a particular left-leaning or right-leaning point of view.
Interesting to note, Crooks searched for Trump’s campaign events as early as September of last year, and FBI officials said he began searching this past April for campaign events for both Trump and Biden near where he lived in western Pennsylvania.
You should know when Crooks was shot and killed by a U.S. Secret Service counter-sniper, agents found a detonation device on him and two improvised explosive devices in the car that he drove to the rally site.
One more thing: Researchers say he looked up information online about bomb components as early as 2019.
RFK Jr. to Remain on Michigan, Wisconsin Ballots
Independent candidate turned Donald Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remain on the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin.Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission turned down Kennedy’s request to remove his name as an option for voters and approved other third-party candidates as options, including Jill Stein and Cornel West. Meanwhile, in Michigan, a spokesperson representing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that Kennedy would remain on Michigan’s ballot, since by law, minor party candidates cannot withdraw their names.
You should know that when Kennedy suspended his campaign last week, he told supporters not to vote for him since he’s working on withdrawing his name from ballots in 10 battleground states in order to avoid being a spoiler.
On a side note, Wisconsin and Michigan are states that Trump narrowly won in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.
You should also know that Kennedy has begun the process of removing his name from the ballot in several other swing states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania. He’s also trying to get his name off the ballot in states that are generally considered to be red or blue, including Florida and Texas.
Lawsuits Pile Up After Company Confirms Social Security Numbers Were Hacked
National Public Data (NPD), a background check company, is getting hammered with even more lawsuits since it confirmed a major breach of data that exposed the personal records of millions of Americans, including their Social Security numbers.Earlier this month, the breach became more widely known after a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Florida-based company. It alleges that nearly 3 billion records were leaked online and put up for sale for $3.5 million on what’s called the dark web.
You should know that since the company’s initial acknowledgment of the breach, more than a dozen suits have been filed against NPD or its parent company, Jerico Pictures.
In case you’re not up to speed, NPD recently admitted it had a “data security incident” back in December 2023, along with “potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024.
The company blamed a third-party bad actor and said it added more security measures in order to protect its systems and keep such a breach from happening again.
You should know that the first lawsuit was filed on Aug. 1 by a California resident. He alleged the company was hacked by USDoD, a cybercriminal organization, which then posted the database of Social Security numbers and other records on the dark web. His lawsuit, and a variety of other lawsuits, accuse NPD of negligence and a breach of fiduciary duty.
So far, the firm has not responded to the allegations in court, and you should know that those allegations have prompted a House committee to open up an investigation into the company.
Supreme Court Refuses to Reinstate $475 Billion Student Loan Relief Program
Yesterday, the high court turned down President Joe Biden’s request to reinstate a $475 billion student loan relief plan just weeks after an appeals court blocked it.This particular case is Biden v. Missouri.
To refresh your memory, the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan was first proposed in August 2022. It aimed to reduce monthly payments for millions of eligible borrowers and accelerate loan forgiveness for others.
You should know that the SAVE plan wasn’t yet finalized in June 2023 when the Supreme Court struck down the federal government’s previous $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan in a different case, which was Biden v. Nebraska.
As of today, a nationwide injunction, issued by the the Appeals Court for the Eighth Circuit, temporarily prevents the federal government from forgiving principal or interest on outstanding student loans. It also blocks a provision halting interest from being calculated on loans, and pauses a provision allowing borrowers to make very low or zero monthly payments geared to income.
This new action by the Supreme Court came after Biden filed an emergency application earlier this month to vacate the injunction issued by the Eighth Circuit.
On a side note, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey praised the Supreme Court’s decision not to lift the injunction against the SAVE plan, saying, “This is the second time the Supreme Court has sided with my office against one of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ unlawful student loan cancellation schemes.”
More Than Half of Commercial Baby Foods Are Unhealthy
A new study finds that many foods on the market created for infants and toddlers are unhealthy and may lead to increased obesity, poor dietary habits, and chronic diseases.Researchers analyzed hundreds of products from 10 U.S. grocery chains and discovered that 60 percent of the processed foods fell short of nutritional requirements set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The foods they sampled were intended for children ages 6 months to 3 years old.
In the study published last week in the journal Nutrients, researchers found that over 70 percent of the products failed to meet protein requirements and 44 percent exceeded total sugar recommendations.
Elizabeth Dunford, assistant professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina and co-author of the study, told The Epoch Times that early childhood is a crucial period of rapid growth and when taste preferences and dietary habits form. She says the habits formed early on potentially pave the way for the development of chronic diseases and some cancers later in life.
According to Dunford, many baby foods, specifically puree-based foods, may not be appropriate as the baby weans off the liquid nutrition of breast milk or formula, because they’re high in sugar and low in fats, proteins, and other important nutrients such as iron. She went on to say that their findings highlight the urgent need for better regulation and guidance in the infant and toddler foods market in the United States since the health of future generations depends on it.
By the way, researchers found that food pouches, the fastest-growing product segment, are among the unhealthiest of all baby foods, since they have the lowest compliance with nutrient requirements.
Interesting to note, the study showed that the use of pouches has grown by 900 percent during the past 13 years—dominating the baby food market with nearly 50 percent of all products on store shelves in 2023.
Please do all you can to eat healthy, live healthy, and a little bit of exercise goes a long way to ensure a better life for you and your little ones.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Thursday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
Thanks for checking out the program today, and next time you drop in for a listen, feel free to bring some friends and co-workers along.
*(Don’t forget the News Brief Motto): We’re portable, affordable, and 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 Malcolm S. Forbes, who said: “The more sympathy you give, the less you need.”
Forbes was an American entrepreneur and politician most prominently known as the publisher of Forbes magazine, which was founded by his father B. C. Forbes.
Before we go, today is National Lemon Juice Day. Try adding just a drop of lemon juice to your cooking, or squeeze some lemon juice into your water or sodas, and of course, nothing beats pink lemonade on a hot summer day.
For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
Thank you for making us your one-stop source for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.
Enjoy the remainder of your Thursday, and we’ll see you right back here next time for another edition of The Epoch Times News Brief. For now, let’s all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today! Bye for now.
