Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some really critical stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.
The suspect in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a Georgia high school faces murder charges, and the agencies that rate your credit are hit with big fines. Also, Democrats want the FDA to have more power when it comes to regulating e-cigarettes, and China is trying to influence voters ahead of November’s presidential election.
Apalachee High School Shooting Suspect Charged With 4 Counts of Felony Murder
A 14-year-old student, Colt Gray, has just been charged with four counts of felony murder in connection with Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also says additional charges are expected to be filed against Gray in the shooting that left four people dead and nine others injured.
The four who were killed are teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie, and two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
According to the bureau, so far, no motive has been established for the shootings. However, authorities say Gray, who is in custody, will be tried as an adult. Members of his family have not issued any public statements and authorities have not released a mug shot.
Interesting to note, officials did confirm that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies had investigated the 14-year-old shooter after they received multiple anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to carry out a school shooting. Further, those threats were posted to a gaming site and featured pictures of guns, according to Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum.
However, at that time, the FBI says there was no probable cause to make an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels.
This is a developing story, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of all those affected by this terrible tragedy.
Credit Rating Agencies Fined Nearly $50 Million for ‘Recordkeeping Failures’
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged six credit rating agencies with “significant recordkeeping failures.”The agencies include Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings, who will each pay out $20 million, $8 million for Fitch Ratings, AM Best is paying out $1 million, HR Ratings de Mexico $250,000, and Demotech $100,000. In addition to penalties, the agencies were ordered to never violate the provisions in the future.
You should know that the Securities Exchange Act requires credit rating agencies to retain all internal and external communications which have been both sent and received by the agencies, as well as their employees, who manage rating activities.
However, the SEC found that the firms violated these recordkeeping provisions.
For example, employees at Moody’s were found to have communicated through their personal mobile devices, according to an SEC order. These messages included discussions regarding initiating, determining, maintaining, monitoring, changing, or withdrawing a credit rating.
Moving forward, a Moody’s spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the ratings agency is “fully committed” to upholding its regulatory record-keeping obligations, and along with AM Best, says they’re pleased to put the matter behind them.
Interesting to note, doubts have been cast in past years over the value that credit rating agencies provide. In 2008, during the financial crisis, major credit agencies failed to identify and warn about the risks of instruments such as mortgage-backed securities.
However, a Harvard Business School study published last year found that the performance of the agencies improved since the financial crisis.
Democrats Urge Supreme Court to Back FDA’s Authority to Regulate E-Cigarettes
The 16 lawmakers, led by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the high court to overturn a lower court ruling that blocks the FDA from rejecting certain types of e-cigarettes.That decision, by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, struck down the agency’s rejections of applications from two e-cigarette manufacturers: Triton Distribution and Vapetasia LLC.
In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit found that the FDA acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” and in violation of a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act by rejecting applications filed by the e-cigarette makers in 2020.
The applications were for products with flavors such as sour grape, pink lemonade, and creme brulee, and names including “Jimmy the Juice Man Strawberry Astronaut” and “Suicide Bunny Bunny Season.”
At the time, the FDA argued that it had rejected the product’s marketing applications because the two companies failed to show that the possible benefits for adult smokers outweighed the risk of harm to youth. However, the court found that the FDA did not consider plans by those companies to prevent underage access and use of their products.
In their amicus brief, the lawmakers say that the Fifth Circuit Court ruling threatens to undermine public health, particularly of children, and also that the FDA reached a “carefully reasoned conclusion” in not allowing those products to be placed on the market.
For their part, the companies said they spent “untold millions” to provide what the FDA required, but the agency turned around and imposed new testing requirements without any notice.
Ultimately, lawmakers say that the key to reducing tobacco-related deaths is preventing tobacco use by young people, and that the FDA’s authority to oversee e-cigarette products, including by denying authorization to sell specific products, is foundational in doing so.
They went even further, stating that the Fifth Circuit’s decision flies directly in the face of that authority, and if the U.S. Supreme Court does not overturn this ruling, it will have “devastating consequences for the American health system and individual Americans.”
US Voters Targeted by Chinese Online Influence Campaign Ahead of November Election: Report
According to a report out this week from New York-based intelligence company Graphika, the CCP’s disinformation networks are using fake accounts on social media platforms to push divisive messages ahead of November’s presidential election.Analysts call this social media disinformation campaign “Spamouflage” or “Dragonbridge.”
The CCP’s campaign has been tracked by Graphika since 2019 and is known for spreading large amounts of disinformation as well as unrelated content. Researchers say it’s active across more than 40 online platforms with messages that promote pro-China and anti-Western narratives.
Their report found 15 Spamouflage accounts on social media platform X and one on TikTok. Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s chief intelligence officer, said that Spamouflage is “one of the world’s largest covert online influence operations,” is run by Chinese state actors, and has become more aggressive in its efforts to infiltrate and sway U.S. political conversations ahead of the election.
He went on to say that these fake accounts mimicking Americans are focused on divisive political topics, including gun control, racial issues, homelessness, and Israel’s war in Gaza.
You should know that a researcher with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan told The Epoch Times that “the CCP does not necessarily support a specific party or candidate,” but targets both Republicans and Democrats. He added that their ultimate goal is to undermine the confidence of the people in their democratic system and to make people lose confidence in democracy.
By the way, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, says it removed Spamouflage activity from its platforms. X also suspended several accounts that were linked to Spamouflage, and even TikTok removed some accounts linked to that network.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Friday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
*(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 the great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said: “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
This year, the first day of fall begins on Sept. 22, which means that fall falls on my birthday.
Before we go, today is National Food Bank Day where you’re encouraged to contribute to the cause that believes no one should go to bed hungry. Please make a contribution to a food bank if you can.
Today is also National Coffee Ice Cream 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 Friday, and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow for the Saturday edition (the weekend 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.
