Pentagon chief to restore advisory panels after purge of Trump loyalists . . .Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will reinstate five key Pentagon advisory boards after earlier this year suspending the committees and ousting last-minute appointees by former President Trump, the Pentagon confirmed Thursday. Press secretary John Kirby said Austin plans to restore the five major boards of policy, science, business, health and innovation after he reviews recommendations made by a committee tasked with scrutinizing the Defense Department's 42 boards and commissions. The Hill

The Dangerous War We Don’t See . . .  On Monday, the Biden administration formally blamed China for a massive cyberattack against Microsoft’s email software that impacted tens of thousands of U.S. businesses, government offices, and schools.In response to this attack, the Biden administration opted for the “name and shame” approach by calling out China and publicizing an advisory list of more than 50 different tactics used by China’s hackers to target the United States. You can imagine how shaken Xi Jinping and the dictatorship were by being “named and shamed.” Speaking at the press conference, President Biden said, “The Chinese government, not unlike the Russian government, is not doing this themselves, but are protecting those who are doing it and maybe even accommodating them being able to do it.”Joe Biden's statement revealed how weak his response is to the real threat of cyberwarfare – and how he fundamentally misunderstands what we are up against. Gingrich360

 

Internet outage hits multiple companies . . . A widespread internet outage hit multiple companies Thursday afternoon and was resolved just before 1 p.m. EST. Connection failures impacted content delivery and cloud service company Akamai, which said the outage was not the result of a cyber attack.Websites for Amazon, Google, Verizon, Delta, HBO Max, Airbnb, AT&T Fidelity, FedEx, UPS, Southwest Airlines, HomeDepot and others may have been impacted across the country and especially in major cities like New York City; Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Fox News

 

 

Nomination Delays Spur Pentagon Personnel Crisis . . . More than two dozen vital leadership positions at the Pentagon remain without appointees from President Joe Biden, a historic delay that could threaten national security, according to experts.
Biden has only pushed six senior Department of Defense nominees through the full confirmation process, leaving vacancies among military brass. He has yet to install secretaries of the Navy and Air Force more than six months into his administration. Some 20 nominees for senior positions await confirmation votes. The sluggish pace falls short of even the Trump administration’s early staffing woes, which Democrats roundly criticized at the time. Washington Free Beacon

 

 

U.S. launches airstrikes against Taliban forces . . . U.S. military revealed Wednesday that it had launched a series of airstrikes against several targets in Afghanistan to support the government in Kabul in its fight against Taliban insurgents, even with President Biden’s withdrawal order nearly completed. Pentagon officials would not discuss details of the strikes, the first since operations in Afghanistan were handed over to U.S. Central Command. They did say Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, who now oversees all military operations in the Middle East, has the authority to launch such missions. Washington Times

 

 

 

Kids' suicide, mental health hospitalizations spiked amid COVID lockdowns . . . COVID-19 policies had disastrous results on children, especially in California, according to medical researchers at the University of California San Francisco. Suicides in the Golden State last year jumped by 24% for Californians under 18 but fell by 11% for adults, showing how children were uniquely affected by "profound social isolation and loss of essential social supports traditionally provided by in-person school." Children requiring emergency mental health services jumped last year in Children's Hospital of Oakland, and children's hospitalizations for eating disorders more than doubled at UCSF Children's Hospital. In January, the latter's emergency department (ED) at Mission Bay hit a record for "highest proportion of suicidal children in ER" at 21%. The researchers previewed their findings and conclusions in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month. They accused the CDC of burying the harms to teen mental health from lockdown while cherry-picking data to cast teen COVID hospitalizations "in the worst possible light. Just the News

 

 

China rejects next stage of WHO Covid origins probe . . . China has rejected the next stage of a World Health Organization-led probe into the origins of Covid-19 because investigators intend to treat the theory that it may have leaked from a Wuhan lab as plausible. Zeng Yixin, vice-minister of the National Health Commission, told journalists at a press conference on Thursday that he had been “shocked” to see the “lab leak” hypothesis had become part of the proposed WHO plan for a second-phase study. “We cannot accept this kind of origin tracing plan,” he said and reiterated China’s claim that the theory that the virus may have leaked from a government lab in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the disease was discovered in late 2019, was conjecture. Financial Times

 

Inflation Pushes Consumer-Goods Giant Unilever to Accelerate Price Increases . . . The maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise warned of accelerating price increases across a range of products, as it seeks to counter cost inflation across its business. Unilever UL -5.43% PLC said Thursday that it was grappling with higher costs for ingredients, packaging and transportation, which would likely lower its full-year profitability—a warning that sent shares down 5% in early trading. The London-listed consumer-goods giant said it would step up price increases across the world, having already raised prices 1.6% in the second quarter. Wall Street Journal

 

Biden dismisses inflation concerns even as consumer prices surge . . . President Biden on Wednesday again downplayed concerns about the recent burst of inflation, maintaining that surging consumers prices are temporary even as he cautioned that restaurants and other businesses in the hospitality sector could take longer to recover from the pandemic. Though Biden acknowledged there will be "near-term inflation" as the economy reopens from the coronavirus pandemic, he said during a CNN town hall in Cincinnati that most economists believe "it’s highly unlikely that it’s going to be long-term inflation that’s going to get out of hand." Fox Business

 

 

 

Judge Blocks Arkansas Abortion Law as ‘Imminent Threat’ to Women . . . A federal judge has blocked a law that would have banned almost all abortions in Arkansas, calling it an “imminent threat” to women seeking abortions. District Court Judge Kristine Baker issued a preliminary injunction blocking authorities from enforcing the Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act until she issues a final ruling, The Washington Post reported. The law was set to go into effect July 28. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, signed the bill into law in March. It would ban all abortions except in cases when the procedure would save the life of the mother. The law, which did not make exceptions for rape or incest, is considered one of the strictest pro-life measures in the country. Daily Signal

 

 

Kaseya Gets Tool to Unlock Data After Ransomware Attack . . . . The technology provider at the center of a ransomware attack this month said it obtained a tool to unlock data targeted by hackers in an incident that disrupted hundreds of firms in several countries. Miami-based Kaseya Ltd. on Thursday said it received a universal decryptor that would help restore all the computer systems affected by the July 2 hack of one of its products, which acted as a springboard for hackers to reach other organizations. The ransomware group behind the attack initially demanded $70 million for such a tool. Kaseya spokeswoman Dana Liedholm described the source of the decryptor as a trusted third party, declining to elaborate or comment on whether a ransom was paid. “We are actively and successfully using the tool to help those customers affected by the ransomware,” Ms. Liedholm added. Wall Street Journal