From The Hill
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Tuesday on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a path smoothed on Sunday by a deal reached with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Sen. Cornyn has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, which will be issuing a formal order permanently terminating the anti-weaponization fund and making…
A London production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park With George will continue without Ariana Grande, according to producers. The Wicked star announced over the weekend that she would “step back from visibility” following her Eternal Sunshine tour on September 1, citing “endless, ongoing public scrutiny.” In a […]
Source: Deadline.
A pistol-packing bystander turn into a hero during the Idaho In-N-Out mass shooting, blasting away at the suspect as the deadly violence unfolded on video. The Idaho Stateman reports that Jordan Salinas drove to the In-N-Out restaurant in Twin…
From TMZ.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that the military has “exceeded” the parameters of President Donald Trump’s orders in striking alleged drug-smuggling vessels.
Source: ABC News
BBC Sport takes a look at what has changed, what has stayed the same and what the future holds for MI London after investment from Indian Premier League side Mumbai Indians.
Source: BBC.
EXCLUSIVE: The Boys VFX firm Untold Studios has hired a president of film and episodic. Adrianna Cohen will lead the film and episodic VFX business globally, overseeing stategy, operations and creative production and with a remit to drive growth across the international network in L.A., New York, Toronto, London and Mumbai. Cohen’s past employers include […]
Source: Deadline.
From The Hill
Let’s face it, the Supreme Court has dug itself into a hole, and it just keeps digging.
Source: CBS News.
Zac Brown Band celebrated their 15th straight sold-out concert at Fenway Park in Boston by giving everyone a free vacation on a cruise ship.
Last week, Minnesota detected a cyberattack on roughly three dozen municipal water systems in the state, and a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told MS NOW that it was probably the work of Iranian hackers.
On Friday, however, Donald Trump decided he had no use for the intelligence that blamed the U.S. adversary. The president instead blamed Americans.
“We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack, and they blame it on Iran — I don’t think so,” the Republican said during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David. “I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent.” He went on to say, “There was a cyberattack of 30 water plants, and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota.”
Shortly thereafter, as the meeting started to wrap up, a reporter asked Trump whether he was prepared to rule out the possibility that Iran was responsible for the cyberattacks. “I think that Minnesota is behind it,” he said. “You know who is behind it? Minnesota. … I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
Even for a president who increasingly treats Democratic-led states as undeserving of federal support and resources, Trump’s eagerness to blame Americans for cyberattacks that appear to have come from Iran was quite bonkers, even for him. To hear the president tell it, Minnesota hacked itself, which is every bit as absurd as it sounds.
It quickly became apparent, however, that Minnesota wasn’t the only target. The New York Times reported:
The scope of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems has grown to include at least seven states and may be far wider, officials and experts warned, as the authorities raced to safeguard the nation’s water supply against an assault that increasingly appeared to be the work of Iran.
While there were no indications that any water supply had been altered or made unsafe to drink, state and local officials throughout the country were on high alert for potential problems in vulnerable computers that are commonly used to monitor and adjust water quality, including chemical-treatment levels and water pressure. Minnesota first publicly reported the attacks, and now Michigan says its systems have also been targeted.
The report added that while U.S. officials have not definitively determined that Iran was responsible, Iran has “stepped up cyberattacks since the U.S. and Israel launched a war against the country five months ago, and had previously targeted similar water systems and other critical infrastructure in the U.S. There seemed no financial motive, making a criminal attack less likely.”
Time will tell whether Trump continues to blame Americans for this, and again questions the existence of the cyberattacks, but as the story unfolds, several Democratic officials are increasingly raising difficult questions about the Republican administration and its record.
For example, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom the president appeared desperate to condemn on Friday, responded to the president by noting the Trump administration’s cybersecurity cuts.
“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit, too,” Walz said. “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
“DOGE took an ax to CISA and left the U.S. exposed to cyberattacks,” Walz added, referring to the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also responded to Trump’s efforts to blame Americans, arguing online, “No. This is a bald-faced lie.” The New York Democrat added, “Trump cut the agency that protects cybersecurity by $700 million and still hasn’t nominated a permanent director for it. Trump is grossly incompetent. He is responsible.”
The Democrats’ criticism is rooted in fact. The president who blamed Americans for the cyberattacks is the same president who, just a few months into his second term, fired a series of national security officials, including Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency.
Six months later, Politico reported, “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised to prioritize a ‘comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to cybersecurity.’ But over the last nine months, [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] has had its staffing slashed by more than a third, axed funding for election security programs and scaled back its support to state and local governments to protect against cyber threats.”
This is the same agency that, almost exactly a year before the cyberattacks on U.S. water systems began, issued a public warning about “Iranian-affiliated cyber actors” targeting — you guessed it — U.S. water systems.
The same week, The New York Times reported, “Cyberattacks by the nation’s adversaries have increasingly targeted broader swaths of American communications and public infrastructure. But even as more sophisticated threats emerge, the Trump administration’s cuts to federal programs have eroded U.S. cyberspace defenses, according to a senator and a nonprofit organization that advocates improved security.”
Referring to the Trump administration’s efforts, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine said, “I would call it almost an across-the-board retreat from the national security defenses that we built up over the past five years, at the same time that the threat is only increasing and accelerating.”
Ten months later, at least seven states are dealing with cyberattacks on domestic water systems.
Is the president trying to deflect blame out of petty partisanship, or he is trying to deflect attention away from his own record?
The post As scope of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems grows, Trump’s record faces new scrutiny appeared first on MS NOW.
From MS Now.
From The Hill
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) is calling for his son-in-law, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), to resign from the House over allegations from Miller’s former wife. It’s the latest personnel problem for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The Senate is in session, and late Sunday made progress on a deal to fund the government and get President Trump’s…
Freeform is delving back into the depths of true-crime. The Disney-owned network has greenlit Somebody Knows Something, a series about unsolved missing persons cases, hosted by true-crime influencer and kidnapping survivor Kara Robinson Chamberlain. The series, which launches on August 10, will follow Chamberlain as she investigates unsolved murders and missing persons cases that have stumped law […]
Source: Deadline.
Canada’s second largest airline, WestJet, has agreed to a tentative agreement with flight attendants to end a strike that led to hundreds of flight cancellations and thousands of stranded passengers
Source: ABC News