Investigation or Coverup? 5 Secret Service Topic Agents Suspended After Trump Assassination Fiasco
Private investigator near me:
As a minimum 5 Secret Service agents had been positioned on administrative leave following the disastrous systemic failure that with reference to resulted within the assassination of outdated President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
One member of Trump’s within most protective element and four contributors of the Pittsburgh Topic Anguish of work, in conjunction with the particular agent accountable, had been identified for that it’s possible you’ll maybe well perchance moreover think disciplinary circulate. One of the 5 agents became moreover the tournament coordinator.
BREAKING: Extra than one Secret Service agents assign on leave for the duration of investigation into Trump assassination. pic.twitter.com/rolsPLGTCL
If any person had residing out to function the chance for an assassin to destroy Trump, it’s sophisticated to appear what they would hang done in every other case. There became no coordination between the Secret Service and local law enforcement, and a counter-sniper team became assigned greatest the day earlier than the rally, and they didn’t hang time to total their location peek. A constructing within easy rifle shot of the podium from which Trump would be in contact became by no methodology secured. Secret Service and local authorities used a amount of communications devices, and there became no consolidated portray center. My colleague, Susie Moore, paperwork the overall anomalies on this put up: Unbelievable: Higgins’ File Shows FBI Launched Shooter’s Physique for Cremation Staunch 10 Days After J13.
For all of RedState’s protection of the Trump assassination strive, click on this hyperlink.
The head of the Secret Service, Kim Cheadle, resigned after a brutal listening to in which she would possibly moreover no longer or would no longer answer basically the most classic of questions.
We will soon know if right here’s a real investigation or a coverup. The resolution to deprive Trump of sufficient safety became made a ways above the Pittsburgh Topic Anguish of work. If the overall blame is positioned on a handful of field agents and a pyramid of (figurative) heads is no longer built outdoors Secret Service headquarters in Washington, then all we’re seeing is a coverup perpetrated, and Congress will hang to never stand by and let it happen.
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After its first recall in September, the Milo’s Poultry Farms egg recall has escalated. The FDA investigation of salmonella infections is ongoing.
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The salmonella fear continues, reaching from the Midwest to this point as California and Virginia. The U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded its recall of eggs from Milo’s Poultry Farms. The normal egg recall turned into introduced on Sept. 6 after the FDA connected Milo’s to a salmonella outbreak investigation that has induced 65 diseases all the map via 9 states.
Here’s what you would possibly maybe well well also unprejudiced maintain to know in regards to the changes to the egg recall—and systems to build stable when cooking.
Private investigator near me: What induced the egg recall?
Milo’s Poultry Farms is connected to a salmonella outbreak in 9 states: California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. This outbreak ended in a Class 1 recall, or a priority wherein there’s an inexpensive probability that the use of, or exposure to, destructive eggs will trigger extreme health consequences or dying.
Of the 65 folks which were contaminated with the salmonella rigidity linked to Milo’s eggs, 24 were hospitalized to this point. Alternatively, the heavenly amount of ailing folks is seemingly unparalleled elevated than the amount reported, based totally on the CDC.
Private investigator near me: What eggs were recalled?
via fda.gov
The authentic recall announcement included simplest two brands: eggs from Milo’s Poultry Farms and Tony’s Unique Market. That list has since expanded to incorporate the following four brands:
Milo’s Poultry Farms
M&E Family Farms
Tony’s Unique Market
Pleased Quackers Farms
The expanded recall now covers all eggs, in conjunction with brown rooster eggs and duck eggs, in all sizes. It additionally involves all kinds of eggs (feeble cage-free, non-GMO and organic).
Private investigator near me: What would possibly maybe well maintain to I form subsequent?
The advice stays the an identical: Create no longer put collectively dinner or eat any eggs which are phase of this recall. Whereas you would possibly maybe well well also unprejudiced maintain Milo’s Poultry Farms eggs, throw them out. Whereas you stored the eggs without the typical packaging, the FDA recommends throwing them away to be on the stable aspect. Then, neatly-kept and disinfect your refrigerator as neatly as any diversified surfaces or containers the eggs would possibly maybe well unprejudiced maintain touched.
Whereas you would possibly maybe well well also unprejudiced maintain symptoms of salmonella poisoning, similar to fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting or abdominal concern, contact your doctor as quickly as that you just would possibly maybe well be ready to assume of.
Cloud computing has always been marketed to enterprises as a more cost-effective way for companies to access the compute resources they need, because they only pay for what they use and can easily scale back how much they are using, based on demand.
Enterprises were encouraged, on the back of these benefits, to streamline their on-premise datacentres and start migrating the applications and workloads that resided in them to the public cloud.
In the early 2010s, it is fair to say that companies had a much wider choice of public cloud providers to entrust their data to, with (the technology firms formally known as) HP and Dell both having enterprise propositions in this space, alongside Rackspace and the likes of Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Towards the latter half of that decade, HP, Dell and Rackspace (and a handful of others) had all bowed out of the public cloud race, with the rise of AWS often cited as a factor in their decisions to pivot their business models towards a mix of private and managed cloud services provision.
This, in turn, has paved the way for the cloud infrastructure market to become the three-horse race it is today, with AWS leading the charge, followed by Microsoft and Google Cloud.
With around two-thirds of an entire market dominated by just three players, it is perhaps unsurprising that the hold companies like AWS, Microsoft and Google have on the cloud infrastructure services market is coming under increased regulatory scrutiny in various markets across the world – and the UK is no different.
In September 2022, the communications regulator Ofcom launched year-long probe into the UK’s £15m cloud services market, with particular emphasis on the actions and activities of the market’s biggest players: AWS, Microsoft and Google.
The study’s aim, as outlined by Ofcom at the time, was to “assess the strength of the competition in cloud services and the position key companies hold in the market” under the terms of the Enterprise Act 2002, which is an act of Parliament concerned with preserving market competitiveness.
Halfway through its investigation, Ofcom published an interim report in April 2023 that singled out AWS and Microsoft, specifically, for engaging in anti-competitive behaviours that it claimed might financially disadvantage UK consumers and businesses.
The “behaviours” were serious enough for Ofcom to confirm it was consulting on whether to refer the UK cloud infrastructure services market to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
This was in the wake of its investigation bringing to light evidence that users were being hampered in their ability to switch from one cloud provider to another or add additional ones to their roster of technology providers.
Despite opposition from both Amazon and Microsoft, Ofcom confirmed – at the time its final report into the UK cloud infrastructure services market dropped in October 2023 – that it would be referring the market to the CMA for a further anti-trust probe.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Why did Ofcom refer the UK cloud services market to the CMA?
Ofcom published a full-year report that chronicled the findings of its 12-month investigation into the UK cloud infrastructure market in October 2023 that raised red flags about some anti-competitive behaviours it claimed AWS and Microsoft are both known to display. This is why the market has been referred to the CMA.
These red flags included concerns about the fact cloud providers charge customers egress fees to transfer their data to a competitor’s environment, which Ofcom claimed could discourage users from switching between providers.
The report also flagged interoperability restrictions as being another matter of concern, as it means users often have to put additional effort into reconfiguring their data and applications to work in different cloud environments.
The offering of committed spend discounts, which Microsoft and AWS are both known to do to public sector users, was also raised as a red flag by Ofcom as it incentivises users to back a single cloud provider for all or most of their cloud needs, the regulator claimed.
Ofcom’s full-year report also devoted several pages to detailing concerns it had received about how Microsoft charges users more for running versions of its cloud products in its competitors’ hosting environments.
“We have received submissions that say Microsoft engages in several practices that make it less attractive for customers to use Microsoft’s licensed software products on the cloud infrastructure of rival providers compared to Microsoft Azure. The submissions allege that this limits their ability to compete for customers.”
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: What will the CMA investigation cover?
It will be the CMA’s responsibility to fully investigate the anti-competitive behaviours flagged in the Ofcom report. As well as this, the CMA also has powers to intervene and roll out changes to how the likes of AWS and Microsoft behave to correct any anti-competitive behaviours its work brings to light.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Who is overseeing the CMA investigation?
The CMA appointed an inquiry group to oversee the investigation on 5 October 2023. The group comprises four members: CMA inquiry chair Kip Meek, Robin Foster, Paul Hughes and Colleen Keck.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: How long will the CMA investigation into AWS and Microsoft last?
The CMA’s investigation into the UK cloud infrastructure services market is due to run until April 2025, meaning that by the time it ends, it will have run for about 18 months.
The investigation’s length has raised eyebrows and proven to be a great source of concern for UK cloud market stakeholders, who fear the 18-month timeline will pave the way for the companies under investigation to gain more share and influence at the expense of other, smaller providers.
And AWS made a similar announcement on 5 March 2024, with its pledge to waive the charges associated with transferring data out to the internet when users want to migrate workloads from its public cloud infrastructure.
In a blog post, announcing the move, the company claimed more than 90% of its customers never incur fees when transferring data out of AWS, because the company already offers 100 gigabytes per month of free transfers from its datacentre regions to the internet.
“If you need more than 100 gigabytes of data transfer out per month while transitioning, you can contact AWS support to ask for free data transfer out to the internet charges for the additional data,” the post stated.
“It’s necessary to go through support because you make hundreds of millions of data transfers each day, and we generally do not know if the data transferred out to the internet is a normal part of your business or a one-time transfer as part of a switch to another cloud provider or on-premises,” the company added.
The AWS blog post made no reference to regulatory pressure being a factor in its decision to waive data egress fees, but did say the move is in keeping with its view that moving to the cloud should give users choice and flexibility.
“We believe this choice must include the one to migrate your data to another cloud provider or on-premises,” the post added.
And doing so will not require users to close their accounts with AWS or change their relationship with the company in anyway, it added.
Just over a week after AWS said it was scrapping data egress fees, Microsoft published a brief blog post confirming that it was doing the same.
“We support customer choice, including the choice to migrate your data away from Azure,” said the Microsoft blog post. “Azure now offers free egress for customers leaving Azure when taking their data out of the Azure infrastructure via the internet to switch to another cloud provider or an on-premises datacentre.”
Technical and interoperability barriers were also flagged by Ofcom as complicating the lives of enterprises that might want to mix and match cloud services from competing providers. Therefore, Ofcom said the CMA could address this by forcing the hyperscalers to be more transparent about how nicely (or not) their technologies play with their competitors’ offerings.
One area that might be trickier for the CMA to fix is the offering of committed spend discounts, Ofcom acknowledged, because putting a stop to customers being able to access preferential pricing on products would mean higher prices and costs for users.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Has there been any shift in behaviour from AWS and Microsoft since the CMA investigation started?
On the whole, it has been business as usual for AWS and Microsoft. There has been no let-up in Amazon’s use of committed spend discounts to lure in public sector customers, for example.
Despite the offering of discounted pricing being a key area of focus for the CMA’s inquiry, details emerged in December 2023 that AWS had quietly renewed the preferential pricing scheme it had in place with the UK government.
This pricing scheme, known as the One Government Value Agreement (OGVA), has already been used to call off several multimillion-pound contracts, including one valued at £450m with the UK Home Office since its introduction in late 2023.
As reported by Computer Weekly in February 2024, Microsoft confirmed it had opened discussions with the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body with a view to resolving its concerns about how it charges more for customers opting to run their own software in its cloud.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Has the CMA released any interim findings from its work so far?
On 23 May 2024, the CMA published the first in a series of working papers, to give stakeholders an insight into the shape its investigation is taking. The publications were released with the caveat that the working papers’ contents is not intended to give readers a steer on any provisional or final decisions the CMA is making.
The working papers include one examining the UK cloud market’s overall competitive landscape, along with others separately looking at how the charging of egress fees and the offering of committed spend discounts might impact which providers companies choose to use.
Facebook and Instagram face fresh investigation from the EU over concerns that they’re not doing enough to protect minor users on their platforms.
Two important concerns have been raised—that the platforms are too addictive and that their age-verification tools are not effective.
If Meta is found in violation of the DSA regulations, it will face a massive fine of up to 6% of its annual global revenue.
The European Union has launched a fresh investigation against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) over concerns that it’s not doing enough to protect minor users on its platforms. If these concerns are found to be true, the company will be slapped with a heavy fine.
In a statement released on Thursday, the EU said that it’s worried Facebook and Instagram “may exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors and cause addictive behavior.”
The EU is also concerned that these platforms are not doing enough to keep underage users off them. Apparently, the age-verification methods put in place are not as effective as they should be.
Meta has responded to EU’s concerns and said that ensuring young people have a safe experience on its platforms is one of its top priorities. The company has invested decades in research and has created around 50 safety tools to protect children online.
It’s worth noting that Meta isn’t lying when it says it has created child safety tools. For instance, it released two major updates in January this year to address mounting regulatory pressure.
However, the EU is right in saying that the platforms aren’t doing anything to keep young users off it—Meta is just promising safety. This is not enough because a 12-year-old’s brain can still get fried seeing useless reels all day long, even if it’s not ‘sensitive content.’
I’m talking about low attention spans, ADHD, teen mental health concerns, etc. Young users should undoubtedly be kept off these platforms with the help of stronger age verification tools.
Nevertheless, Meta acknowledged the points EU raised and said that it’s looking forward to explaining its work to the bloc and doing everything in its power to make its platforms a better place for young users.
The Digital Services Act (DSA)
The EU has always been a tad bit stricter when it came to apps that deal with minors. However, after the recently introduced Digital Services Act (a set of laws that handle everything related to digital platforms), things have gone up a whole new level—and that’s a good thing for us consumers.
Under the DSA, companies that are labeled as ‘very large online platforms‘ have to do more to protect children. For instance, they need to have more protective features in place so that underage users don’t stumble upon inappropriate content.
Failure to comply with the rules would invite a hefty fine of 6% of the company’s annual global revenue—this is the fine I mentioned earlier.
Note: Very large online platforms are apps/websites that have more than 45 million users per month in the European Union.
Interestingly, this is not the first time Meta has been under fire by the EU. In September 2023, it had to submit a risk assessment report to the commission detailing what it’s doing to protect minors on its platform.
However, the EU did not find the report satisfactory. In a statement, it said that it’s not convinced that Meta is doing enough to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA).
On the point of probes, the EU is also investigating Meta for allegedly violating DSA regulations for election disinformation. A separate probe addressing this was launched against Meta in April 2024, which found that the company is not doing enough to curb the spread of election-related misinformation on its platform ahead of the upcoming European Parliament elections.
Furthermore, the EU isn’t the only one scrutinizing core Meta apps and operations. The company has received loads of criticism and investigations from other agencies and law enforcement officials around the world, too.
In December 2023, a New Mexico attorney general sued the company stating that it enables child exploitation, spread of child abuse material, solicitation, and trafficking. Similarly, in October 2023, Meta was sued by 33 US states for being too addictive for young users.
Meta has addressed both these incidents and said the same thing—that protecting young users is its priority and it will look into the matter and take necessary steps. If and when it will do that is the bigger question, in my humble opinion.
Perhaps the EU can impose strict deadlines on the implementation of remedial measures, which could also be verified first-hand by officials?
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