Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Saturday, July 20, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we’ve got some very pressing stories to share with you today, and here’s what’s going on.
Worldwide tech outages have everyone extremely concerned, the president says he’s staying in the race, and drag shows in one state will remain for adults only. Also, hackers continue to breach critical U.S. infrastructure, and the U.S. State Department “won’t hesitate” to take action against the Chinese communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
911 Services Down in Several States Amid Major Tech Outage
This all began due to a major Microsoft and CrowdStrike tech outage, which led to global chaos Friday, including 911 emergency lines going down in several states.CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity firm that provides antivirus software to Microsoft for its Windows devices and is used by many industries, from aviation to banking to retail to health care.
Interesting to note, these massive outages did not affect Mac and Linux, which are operating systems that are different from Microsoft.
George Kurtz, who heads CrowdStrike, says that the IT issue causing the multiple outages was identified by his firm. He went on to say that the problem wasn’t caused by a cyberattack or malicious actors, and a fix has been deployed. Mr. Kurtz says his company will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on the CrowdStrike website.
Depending on where you live, you may not have experienced issues, but the U.S. Emergency Alert System said that a number of 911 lines in multiple states were down, including in Alaska. Troopers in Alaska posted a message on their Facebook page, confirming that 911 and non-emergency call services were down. Emergency services in Ohio and New Hampshire also posted similar messages.
Elsewhere, in Oregon, several 911 centers, hospitals, and airports also experienced tech outages, and Portland’s mayor said he issued an emergency declaration, citing its impact on Portland city servers, data servers, employee computers, and additional systems.
Others affected by the outages include a number of airlines, such as American, Delta, and United, and as a result, they mostly kept their planes on the ground as the issue was being resolved.
In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that it’s working with Microsoft and CrowdStrike as well as local officials to deal with these worldwide system outages. The agency didn’t give specifics, but said its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is working with federal, state, local, and critical infrastructure partners to fully assess and address these substantial issues which continue to have a lingering effect.
Biden Campaign, White House Reject Rumors of Biden Exiting 2024 Race
President Biden’s campaign is reaffirming his commitment to remain in the presidential race in the face of pressure from a group of Democrat lawmakers asking him to drop out.Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), a campaign surrogate, told reporters that she is confident that Democrats will unite behind President Biden, referring to the calls for him to step down as “family discussions” among the Democratic coalition.
Earlier this week, media reports revealed that top Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, had spoken separately with the president, saying they raised concerns over the possibility of Democrats losing control of Congress in 2024 and advised him to consider bowing out of the race.
In response to these reports, campaign surrogate Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the party will eventually unite behind President Biden at the Democratic National Convention, which starts on Aug. 19. Andrew Bates, the White House senior deputy press secretary, agreed, saying the president said he is the nominee of the party, and that he plans to win and looks forward to working with Democrats to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.
Interesting to note that speculation started to build after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) issued a surprise statement earlier this week, asking President Biden to pass the torch. Mr. Schiff told the Los Angeles Times that he now has “serious concerns” about the president’s chances of defeating former President Donald Trump in November.
Meanwhile, other Democrats, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), are asking Democrats to stop attacking President Biden, saying it’s important that the party unifies and wishes the president a speedy recovery from his recent COVID-19 diagnosis.
You should know that the president is self-isolating and recovering at his home in Delaware.
Tennessee Drag Show Ban Upheld After Appeals Court Reverses Ruling
A federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling, upholding a law in Tennessee that bans strippers or men dressed as women from performing in locations where they could be seen by children.A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a nonprofit theater group, which challenged the constitutionality of the Adult Entertainment Act, failed to prove that it had standing.
The group, Friends of George’s, sued Tennessee officials over the law, saying it violated their First Amendment rights.
The lower court judge ruled last year that the Adult Entertainment Act is unconstitutional because it is too vague and overbroad, but the appeals court panel reversed that ruling. It found that Friends of George’s did not provide evidence that it intended to violate the law, which the judges said meant that the group lacks standing. Moreover, the ruling states that even if the organization claimed it intended to violate the law, it would still need to show that a constitutional interest would be affected.
Friends of George’s said they were shocked and disappointed with the decision and that they’re consulting with legal counsel on their next steps in the case.
You should know that Tennessee’s attorney general says that the law has been repeatedly misrepresented since it was signed by Gov. Bill Lee. He says while Tennessee respects the right to free expression, the state’s “harmful to minors” standard is constitutionally sound and Tennessee can absolutely prohibit the exhibition of obscene material to children. He went on to say that the appeals court focused on what the law actually says and ordered the case dismissed.
Number of US Data Breach Victims Jump Nearly 500 Percent in First Half of 2024
The nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) says the number of data breach victims in the United States surged by almost five-fold during the January–June period this year. It says that this is mostly due to a few large hacking events that affected millions of people.In raw numbers, ITRC says there were more than 1 billion data breach victims in the first half of 2024. The majority of the victims, they say, were announced or updated in the second quarter of this year, which saw the third-highest data breach victim count in any quarter.
Interesting to note, the estimated victim count is actually much higher since this report did not take into account the Change Healthcare supply chain attack. That particular breach affected one-third of all Americans.
So you know, even though the number of breach victims spiked hugely, the number of security incidents did not, which means, according to the ITRC’s CEO, that “Every person, business, institution and government agency must view data and identity protection with a greater sense of urgency.”
By the way, data compromises rose in 10 of the 16 industries tracked by the ITRC, with financial services being the most affected, followed by the health care, professional services, manufacturing, and education sectors.
This report follows warnings from security experts that critical U.S. infrastructure such as communication networks and energy suppliers face an increasing threat from cyber criminals, and cyber security has never been more important.
US ‘Won’t Hesitate to Take Appropriate Actions’ Against CCP Persecution of Falun Gong: State Department
The State Department just reiterated that it “won’t hesitate to take appropriate actions” against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) continued persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong.State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel did not specify what they would do, but said the department has been keeping a close eye on China’s actions on human rights.
You should know today marks the 25th anniversary of the CCP’s persecution campaign against Falun Gong, which affects tens of millions of practitioners.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that was first introduced to the public in China in 1992 and quickly grew in popularity. In 1999, the CCP leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, issued orders to “eradicate” the practice by any method necessary. Those methods include illegal arrests of practitioners, propaganda, brainwashing, forced labor, and torture.
Interesting to note that in 2006, whistleblowers stepped forward to give eyewitness accounts of state-sanctioned organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners, and in 2020, an independent people’s tribunal concluded that Beijing had been killing prisoners of conscience for their organs, with imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners as the primary source.
It’s not just the State Department taking action against the Chinese Communist regime. Just last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Falun Gong Protection Act. It calls for sanctions and other penalties against the CCP in order to end its practice of live organ harvesting and also prohibits U.S. cooperation with China in the organ transplantation field so long as the CCP remains in power.
As you know, we are in the throes of summer and some parts of the country are hotter than others, so just a brief summertime reminder to help you avoid overheating.
You can quickly cool yourself down by putting your hands and feet in cold water. Wrists and ankles have a number of pulse points where blood vessels are close to the skin, so you will cool down more quickly. It’s a trick, but it works, and don’t forget to keep drinking water—stay hydrated.
Almost out of time, but before we go and because we’re all watching the markets, yesterday, the Dow closed at 40,287, losing 377 points, and we’ll be waiting to see what happens when the markets open again on Monday.
And now, looks like our time is officially up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Saturday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
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And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very “notable” summertime quote.
Katie Lee said: “If summer had one defining scent, it would definitely be the smell of barbecue.”
Ribs, chops, steaks, chicken, fish, and veggies. They all taste better when they’re BBQ’d.
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 Saturday, have an awesome weekend, and we’ll see you right back here next time for another edition of The Epoch Times News Brief. Have an outstanding day today, and bye for now.
