“City officials in North Miami Beach called for an emergency meeting Saturday after ordering the evacuation of a condominium tower just five miles from last week's building collapse that left 22 dead and more than 120 missing.
Authorities said Friday that the closing of the 156-unit Crestview Towers stems from an audit prompted by the Champlain Towers disaster in nearby Surfside.” Read more at USA Today
“A supply-chain ransomware attack that hit hours before the beginning of a holiday weekend has already affected more than 200 businesses, researchers said.
On Friday, information technology company Kaseya sent out a warning of a ‘potential attack’ on its VSA tool, which is used by IT to manage and monitor computers remotely. Kaseya urged customers to shut down their servers running the service.
This must be done immediately, the company said, because ‘one of the first things the attacker does is [shuts off] administrative access to the VSA.’
The Biden administration seeks to rally allies and the private sector against the ransomware threat
It was unclear late Friday how disruptive the attack might be on U.S. businesses. More than 40,000 organizations use Kaseya products, the company says, which includes VSA and other IT tools.
Researchers said cybercriminals were sending two different ransom notes on Friday — demanding $50,000 from smaller companies and $5 million from larger ones.” Read more at Washington Post
“President Donald J. Trump twice sought to talk on the phone with the Republican leader of Arizona’s most populous county last winter as the Trump campaign and its allies tried unsuccessfully to reverse Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state’s presidential contest, according to the Republican official and records obtained by The Arizona Republic, a Phoenix newspaper.
But the leader, Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview on Friday that he let the calls — made in late December and early January — go to voice mail and did not return them. ‘I told people, ‘Please don’t have the president call me,’' he said.
At the time, Mr. Hickman was being pressed by the state Republican Party chairwoman and Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to investigate claims of fraud in the county’s election, which Mr. Biden had won by about 45,000 votes.
Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that ‘it’s no surprise Maricopa County election officials had no desire to look into significant irregularities during the election,’ though there is no evidence of widespread problems with Arizona’s election. She did not directly address the calls reportedly made by Mr. Trump. Two former campaign aides said they knew nothing about the outreach to the Maricopa County official.” Read more at New York Times
“The chairman of a House subcommittee is demanding that executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell, Chevron and other major oil and gas companies testify before Congress about the industry’s decades-long effort to wage disinformation campaigns around climate change.
Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said Friday he was prepared to use subpoena power to compel the companies to appear before lawmakers if they don’t do so voluntarily.
The move comes a day after a secretive video recording was made public in which a senior Exxon lobbyist said the energy giant had fought climate science through ‘shadow groups’ and had targeted influential senators in an effort to weaken President Biden’s climate agenda. Several of those senators said this week that the lobbyist exaggerated their relationship or that they had no dealings with him.
‘The video was appalling,’ Mr. Khanna said in an interview on Friday. He called it the latest evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to ‘engage in climate denialism and to manipulate public opinion and to exert undue influence in shaping policy in Congress.’” Read more at New York Times
“Trevor Bauer, the Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher under investigation by the authorities in Southern California after a woman accused him of sexual assault, was placed on short-term administrative leave Friday by Major League Baseball.
The move, at least for now, forestalls what could have been the specter of Bauer taking the mound while the police and the league continued their investigations, with details of the accusations publicly known. On Thursday, Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts had said the team planned to let Bauer, 30, make his next scheduled start, on Sunday in Washington, because it was following the lead of M.L.B., which had yet to say Bauer should not play.
‘M.L.B.’s investigation into the allegations made against Trevor Bauer is ongoing,’ the league said in a statement on Friday. ‘While no determination in the case has been made, we have made the decision to place Mr. Bauer on seven-day administrative leave effective immediately. M.L.B. continues to collect information in our ongoing investigation concurrent with the Pasadena Police Department’s active criminal investigation.’
M.L.B.’s collectively bargained policy on domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse gives Bauer the right to contest the administrative leave. But he will not challenge M.L.B.’s decision, according to his agents, Jon Fetterolf and Rachel Luba, who continued to rebut the accuser’s claims.” Read more at New York Times
“BEIRUT — The Lebanese judge leading the investigation into last year’s massive explosion at Beirut’s port announced Friday he intends to pursue senior politicians and former and current security chiefs in the case, and requested permission for their prosecution, state media reported.
The move — two days before the 11-month anniversary of the horrific blast — was praised by families of the victims and survivors as a bold step by Judge Tarek Bitar, whose predecessor was removed following legal challenges by two former ministers he had accused of negligence that led to the explosion.
Bitar confirmed charges filed by his predecessor against outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab and summoned him for questioning, National News Agency reported. He did not set a date.” Read more at Boston Globe
“U.S. Asks Central Asian Nations to Take Afghans Seeking Visas
The Biden administration has asked three Central Asian nations to temporarily house some 9,000 Afghan citizens who worked with the U.S. as they look to flee the Taliban before NATO forces withdraw by Sept. 11, Peter Martin, Nick Wadhams and Jennifer Jacob report.” Read more at Bloomberg“The Spanish government this week passed a draft bill that, when approved by congress, will finally allow transgender people to self-determine their gender. For people like Jimena Gonzalez, who started her gender hormone treatment last December, the moment is bittersweet. ‘Being in the spotlight for months has allowed us to tell our stories in a way that was impossible before,’ she said. ‘But we’ve also become the target of absolutely brutal attacks.’” Read more at Bloomberg
Jimena Gonzalez
Source: Jimena Gonzalez/Aurora Gomez.
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