Important Takeaways:
- Cyberattacks on U.S. Water Facilities Are Increasing. Why?
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a critical enforcement alert on Monday, warning water utilities nationwide to bolster cybersecurity measures immediately due to an increase in the frequency and severity of cyberattacks. According to the EPA, 70 percent of inspected water utilities violated standards designed to prevent security breaches, highlighting the urgent need for improved defenses. The alert comes as smaller communities become prime targets for attacks by groups linked to hostile actors in Russia, Iran, and China.
- In recent assessments, federal officials found water systems failing to implement basic security protocols, such as changing default passwords and revoking access from former employees. With many utilities relying heavily on computer software for operations, the EPA emphasized the importance of safeguarding both information technology and process controls to ensure uninterrupted water supply and safety.
- “In many cases, systems are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, which is to have completed a risk assessment of their vulnerabilities that includes cybersecurity and to make sure that plan is available and informing the way they do business,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe. She added: “China, Russia, and Iran are actively seeking the capability to disable U.S. critical infrastructure, including water and wastewater systems.”
- Recent incidents include the Iranian-affiliated Cyber Av3ngers hacking a small Pennsylvania town’s water utility and a Russian-linked group targeting Texas utilities. In the past, most cyber attacks on utilities have been spearheaded by private actors looking to ransom back access to the owners in the hopes of receiving a cash payment. However, hostile state-aligned actors have also stepped up attacks in recent years. U.S. officials have acknowledged that ‘Volt Typhoon,’ a Chinese-affiliated cyber group, has carried out multiple attacks on U.S. infrastructure.
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Important Takeaways:
- Incredible footage shows destruction as deadly tornadoes rip through Iowa and kill multiple people: 15 counties declared disaster zones with hospital forced to evacuate, homes toppled and 25 million under severe warnings
- Incredible drone footage has captured the immense trail of destruction left across a small Iowa town after a tornado ripped through the state – killing multiple people and injuring dozens more.
- Entire neighborhoods were flattened by several deadly twisters that gripped the region on Tuesday evening, with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds placing 15 counties under disaster emergency proclamations.
- Hours after a tornado touched down in Greenfield, aerial footage showed where a tornado tore through the town as homes were leveled and trees were shredded down to their stumps.
- Carnage is expected to continue through the Midwest as a storm system develops – with over 25 million people currently under severe weather warnings, stretching from Missouri to Wisconsin.
- Iowa Police confirmed there have been multiple fatalities in the deadly weather front. One death occurred in Adams County, Iowa, around 90 miles southwest of Des Moines, when a woman was ejected from a vehicle during the brutal storm.
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Important Takeaways:
- The details: The DEA report found the extremely violent Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels are dominating the U.S. drug trade for meth and fentanyl, with thousands of cartel-linked foot soldiers operating within the 50 states. The report says:
- “Together, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have caused the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.”
- The cartels have “effectively eliminated any competition in U.S. markets” and “dictate the flow of nearly all illicit drugs.”
- The numbers: Nearly 38,000 fentanyl-related deaths occurred in the first half of 2023.
- Recent busts: Last week, the DEA busted “Skittles Man” Roque Bustamante and six others in Florida for fentanyl distribution. It seized:
- roughly 21 kilograms of pure fentanyl
- 70,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills
- 3,000 M30 blue fentanyl pills
- 243 pounds of crystal meth
- 2 kilos of cocaine
- 24 guns
- This is, of course, a dangerous symptom of Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which have allowed more than 10 million people to stream into the country illegally.
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Important Takeaways:
- Earthquake hits volcanic crater near Naples: Strongest tremor to hit region in decades sparks panic, with buildings damaged
- The strongest earthquakes in decades were registered at a volcanic caldera near the southern Italian city of Naples on Monday night, sending panicked residents flocking into the streets.
- One 4.4-magnitude quake was registered shortly after 8pm (1800 GMT) at a depth of 1.6 miles, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
- It was preceded moments earlier by a 3.5-magnitude tremor and followed by dozens of aftershocks.
- The Campi Flegrei – or Phlegraean Fields, as the caldera is known – experienced about 150 earthquakes between 7:51pm on Monday and 12:31am on Tuesday, the INGV said in a report.
- According to the institute’s Mauro Di Vito, ‘this is the most powerful seismic swarm in the last 40 years’.
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Important Takeaways:
- A volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera has spectacularly erupted, spewing a grey ash cloud into the sky, causing the evacuation of people from seven nearby villages, authorities said on May 19.
- Mount Ibu erupted on the evening of May 18, sending ash 4km high, as streaks of purple lightning flashed around its crater, according to information and images shared by Indonesia’s volcanology agency.
- The agency did not provide any information about how many people had been moved, but authorities have recommended that a 7km radius be cleared.
- Ibu’s activities follow a series of eruptions of different volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and has 127 active volcanoes.
- Flash floods and cold lava flow from Mount Marapi, one of the most active in West Sumatra province
- In recent weeks, North Sulawesi’s Ruang volcano has also erupted, spewing incandescent lava.
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Important Takeaways:
World leaders have been targeted quite frequently this month, and that should deeply alarm all of us. I think that all of this geopolitical instability is a sign that there is far more going on behind the scenes than we are being told. The major powers appear to be making moves in anticipation of what they believe is coming next. Right now, the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is dominating the news cycle, and at this stage we don’t know if that was an accident or not. But as a Twitter user known as “Cillian” has pointed out, there has been quite a lot of “international intrigue” during the past couple of weeks…
- Over the past two weeks:
- May 7th: Assassination attempt against Saudi Crown Prince.
- May 13th: Turkish President Erdoğan holds emergency meeting following warning of possible military coup.
- May 15th: Assassination attempt on Slovak PM Robert Fico.
- May 16th: Citizen arrested for threatening to assassinate Serbian President Vučić.
- May 19th: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman hospitalized for second time in four weeks.
- May 19th: Helicopter crash involving Iranian President Raisi and Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian.
What is going on right now?
- On Sunday, a coup that involved at least three U.S. citizens was foiled in the Democratic Republic of Congo…
- American citizens were involved in an attempted coup d’état that left at least three people dead on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a military spokesperson told CNN Monday.
- The attempted coup, which targeted the residence of Congolese politician Vital Kamerhe and the country’s presidential palace, was led by opposition leader Christian Malanga, who was killed in a gun battle between the armed putschists and the presidential guards, according to army spokesman General Sylvain Ekenge. Ekenge also claimed Malanga was a US citizen, though the State Department said later it had no records of him.
- “I confirm the death of Christian Malanga neutralized during the exchange of fire at the Palais de la Nation (presidential palace),” Ekenge told CNN, adding that Malanga’s son Marcel, “was among those arrested.”
- Ekenge named three other Americans, identified as Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, Patrick Ducey, and Taylor Thomson were involved in the foiled coup.
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Important Takeaways:
- Amazon Workers Say They Struggle to Afford Food, Rent
- Five years after Amazon.com Inc. raised wages to $15 an hour, half of warehouse workers surveyed by researchers say they struggle to afford enough food or a place to live.
- The national study, published Wednesday by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development, asked US employees about their economic wellbeing, including whether they’d skipped meals, went hungry, or were worried about being able to make rent or mortgage payments.
- Fifty-three percent of respondents reported that they’d experienced one or more forms of food insecurity in the prior three months, and 48% experienced one or more forms of housing insecurity. Workers who said they took unpaid time off after getting hurt on the job were more likely to report trouble paying their bills, the researchers found.
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Important Takeaways:
- Americans are down on the economy (again), with inflation topping election concerns
- After a spurt of optimism, Americans are feeling a little more glum about the economy — again.
- Consumer sentiment, a gauge of Americans’ economic perceptions, is at a six-month low, according to a closely watched index by the University of Michigan. The measure notched its biggest drop since 2021, reflecting the persistent tug of inflation on household budgets and fueling fears that rising prices, unemployment and interest rates could all worsen in the coming months.
- That pessimism is altering consumers’ spending habits. McDonald’s, Home Depot, Under Armour and Starbucks all recently reported disappointing earnings, as people cut back on fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers and afternoon lattes. Retail sales were flat in April after decent pickups in February and March. Meanwhile, Walmart reported a strong first quarter this week, nudged upward by high-income shoppers, executives said.
- And gas prices, while easing in recent weeks, are up overall for the year, just ahead of the busy summer season.
- In recent weeks, some of the country’s largest companies have mentioned they are feeling the effects of inflation. At Starbucks, for example, customers are coming in less frequently.
- “We continue to feel the impact of a more cautious consumer,” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in an earnings call last month. “Many customers are being more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money, particularly with stimulus savings mostly spent.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran’s New Proxy: American Universities
- “We are watching the demonstrations, and we like what we see, but it should not end with this…. These protestors are our people and will support Iran in an Iran-U.S. confrontation; Iran can repeat in the U.S. what it did in Lebanon but on a grander scale because the ‘Hizbullah -style’ groups in the U.S. are ‘much larger’ than in Lebanon…. America is the Great Satan and our enemy, but we have hope in these areas.” — Foad Izadi, Teheran University, who studied at University of Houston and Louisiana State University, Ofogh TV (Iran), April 26, 2024.
- [Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim] Qassem – who appeared almost taken aback at the eagerness of students on US campuses to join Hamas in its call for the genocide of Jews – was hopeful about the ability of America’s students to help Hezbollah destroy Israel by turning the U.S. against its ally.
- “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the [Alavi] foundation,” Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, November 22, 2009.
- The Alavi Foundation, according to its website, has indeed funded many of the universities where protests were taking place. The universities include those of the Ivy league, such as Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers, as well as UCLA and many others.
- In 2016, Harvard employed Ali Akbar Alikhani – who had warned about “the Jewish threat” — from Tehran University’s Faculty of World Studies, which is reportedly closely tied to the Iranian ruling regime, as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern studies….
- Hooshang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council (AIC), has admitted that the lobbying organization was created by the Islamic Republic of Iran to work for its interests in the US. Amirahmadi has had and continues to enjoy a successful academic career at Rutgers University….
- Some faculty members at Rutgers recently called for the genocide of Jews.
- In addition, at least five US universities — Virginia Tech University, the University of Washington, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clarkson University, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette — have allegedly been cooperating with Iranian entities that are sanctioned by the US and the European Union, including the Iranian Aerospace Research Institute, Iran University of Science and Technology, and the Sharif University of Technology.
- Iran can only be rejoicing at the moral and educational collapse they have helped create on American university campuses, which are grooming America’s future teachers, judges and political leaders. Now, however, these campuses appear to be incubating America’s future terrorists and creating a national security threat.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in the country’s northwest on Sunday, Iranian state media agencies and government officials reported on Monday morning.
- Raisi’s death was reported along with the deaths of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, among others. According to Mehr, all passengers on board were killed.
- The other officials who were killed include Seyyed Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the Islamic Republic’s representative to the East Azerbaijan province, and Malek Rahmati, the province’s governor. The aircraft’s pilot and co-pilot were also killed.
- The semi-official Iranian Tasnim news agency noted that identification efforts of the bodies found at the crash site were ongoing.
- Details about the incident remained unclear. Sunday reports said the president’s helicopter suffered a “hard landing” in foggy weather. As night fell, the search became even more difficult.
- IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency said emergency services were conducting searches to find the helicopter, but the weather and 70-meter-tall boulders in the area were complicating the search efforts. Over 40 rescue teams were operating in the area.
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