July 3 2024
Trump trial; pandemic stunts development; bad Biden polls; AI stock rally; F-35 acquisition; CCTV hacking
FLASH Trump sentencing delayed until Sep 18
1 Pandemic stunts child development in very young children
2 ELECTION 2024 Bad Biden polls follow debate
3 AI drives markets to new heights
4 Taxpayers on hook for repairs in delayed, over-budget $1.8 trillion F-35 program
5 1 billion security cameras globally are fertile ground for hackers and police states
7/3/1988 U.S. warship downs Iranian passenger jet
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No newsletter tomorrow, happy Fourth!
FLASH Trump sentencing delayed until September 18
Article Source: WSJ
1 Pandemic stunts child development in very young children
The pandemic’s babies, toddlers and preschoolers are now school-age, and the impact on them is becoming increasingly clear: Many are showing signs of being academically and developmentally behind. Interviews with more than two dozen teachers, pediatricians and early childhood experts depicted a generation less likely to have age-appropriate skills — to be able to hold a pencil, communicate their needs, identify shapes and letters, manage their emotions or solve problems with peers. A variety of scientific evidence has also found that the pandemic seems to have affected some young children’s early development. Boys were more affected than girls, studies have found “I definitely think children born then have had developmental challenges compared to prior years,” said Dr. Jaime Peterson, a pediatrician at Oregon Health and Science University, whose research is on kindergarten readiness. “We asked them to wear masks, not see adults, not play with kids. We really severed those interactions, and you don’t get that time back for kids.” The pandemic’s effect on older children — who were sent home during school closures, and lost significant ground in math and reading — has been well documented. But the impact on the youngest children is in some ways surprising: They were not in formal school when the pandemic began, and at an age when children spend a lot of time at home anyway. The early years, though, are most critical for brain development. Researchers said several aspects of the pandemic affected young children — parental stress, less exposure to people, lower preschool attendance, more time on screens and less time playing.
Data from Cincinnati Public Schools is another example: Just 28 percent of kindergarten students began this school year prepared, down from 36 percent before the pandemic, according to research from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Article Source: NYT
2 ELECTION 2024 Bad Biden polls follow debate
A pair of new polls released in the wake of the Biden-Trump debate show deteriorating support for Biden:
Harvard CAPS-Harris
The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey, released exclusively to The Hill, found that 66 percent of respondents said they “have doubts” about Biden’s “fitness,” an increase from when the poll was last conducted in May, when 54 percent of respondents said they had doubts. Meanwhile, 34 percent said he is “mentally fit,” and 74 percent said Biden is “showing he is too old” to be president. Only 26 percent said he is “showing he is fit” to be president.
Saint Anselm College
Former President Trump has a 2-point lead over President Biden in New Hampshire, according to a poll published Monday, showing significant gains for Trump after Biden’s poor debate performance last week. The Saint Anselm College poll found that 44 percent of New Hampshire voters would back Trump if the election was held today, to 42 percent supporting Biden. That’s a 12-point swing from an identical December poll, which found Biden with a 10-point lead in the state.
In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won New Hampshire by 7
Article Source: The Hill
3 AI drives markets to new heights
US stocks closed the first half of 2024 14 per cent above where they started the year on Friday, even as investors voiced growing concern over the narrowness of a rally in which just five stocks have driven most of the gains. The rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index was slightly below that seen in the bumper first half of 2023 but still ranks as one of the strongest performances for the opening six months of a year since the late-1990s dotcom bubble. However, almost 60 per cent of the gain for the year to date was driven by just five “megacap” companies — Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Apple — which have all been boosted by an investor frenzy over the potential of generative artificial intelligence. Nvidia alone accounted for 31 per cent of the market’s first-half advance. The rally became even narrower in recent months, with Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft between them driving more than 90 per cent of the growth in the second quarter. That has masked weaker performance among many of the index’s other constituents. The equal-weighted version of the S&P 500 was only up about 4 per cent year to date, and down in the second quarter.
Article Source: FT
4 Taxpayers on hook for repairs in delayed, over-budget $1.8 trillion F-35 program
US taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in repairs if F-35 fighter jets suffer major weather damage while waiting on a Texas tarmac for a long-delayed software upgrade, according to the Pentagon’s contracts oversight agency. The disclosure from the Defense Contract Management Agency is the latest twist in the saga of the Lockheed Martin Corp. fighter jet that’s already projected to cost more than $1.8 trillion over the course of its life cycle, including development, production and sustainment, making it the most expensive weapons system in history. The “significant liability” stems from a standard clause in military aircraft contracts that limits Lockheed’s maximum cost for repairs or replacement to $100,000 per jet, according to the agency and the Government Accountability Office.
Article Source: Bloomberg
5 1 billion security cameras globally are fertile ground for hackers and police states
A few years ago intelligence analysts observed that internet-connected cctv cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were inexplicably talking to vital parts of the Indian power grid. The strange connection turned out to be a deliberately circuitous route by which Chinese spies were communicating with malware they had previously buried deep inside crucial parts of the Indian grid (presumably to enable future sabotage). The analysts spotted it because they were scanning the internet to look for “command and control” (c2) nodes—such as cameras—that hackers use as stepping stones to their victims. The attack was not revealed by an Indian or Western intelligence agency, but by Recorded Future, a firm in Somerville, Massachusetts. Christopher Ahlberg, its boss, claims the company has knowledge of more c2 nodes than anyone in the world. “We use that to bust Chinese and Russian intel operations constantly.” It also has billions of stolen log-in details found on the dark web (a hard-to-access part of the internet) and collects millions of images daily. “We know every uk company, every Chinese company, every Indian company,” says Mr Ahlberg. Recorded Future has 1,700 clients in 75 countries, including 47 governments. The Chinese intrusion and its discovery were a microcosm of modern intelligence. The internet, and devices connected to it, is everywhere, offering opportunities galore for surveillance, entrapment and covert operations. The entities monitoring it, and acting on it, are often private firms, not government agencies. What is made possible online, though, does not stay online. The cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were among more than 1bn installed globally, part of a mushrooming network of technical surveillance that has made life harder for intelligence officers and the agents they must recruit.
Article Source: Economist
7/3/1988 U.S. warship downs Iranian passenger jet
In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship—the aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels were in the gulf defending Kuwaiti oil tankers. Minutes before Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down, the Vincennes had engaged Iranian gunboats that shot at its helicopter.
Sources
1. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trump-cites-immunity-ruling-in-request-to-throw-out-hush-money-conviction-0acb36f8?st=hnyiegzslnwi6su&reflink=article_copyURL_share
2. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/01/upshot/pandemic-children-school-performance.html
3. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4750357-doubts-have-grown-over-bidens-mental-fitness-poll/; https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4750341-trump-leads-biden-new-hampshire/
4. https://www.ft.com/content/194b4ad0-a388-48d9-9ee5-c28aaedc0439
5. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-02/weather-damaged-f-35s-parked-in-texas-may-cost-pentagon-millions?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=nXmOg68r
6. https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2024/07/01/the-tools-of-global-spycraft-have-changed
Thanks for reading!
