Cybercrime: Federal authorities say they recovered more than two million dollars in cryptocurrency paid as ransom to foreign hackers who shut down the Colonial Pipeline that provides nearly half the fuel to the East Coast. It’s believed to be the first …

Apocalypse Now: Saturday night in his first political speech since leaving the presidency, Donald Trump introduced what is likely to be a campaign theme, calling on China to pay trillions of dollars in reparations for the pandemic.   “China inflicted an estimated $ …

Econ 101: Employers are hiring, but not as much as economists had hoped.   The US economy added 559,000 jobs in May, driven in particular by re-openings at restaurants, bars and hotels in particular. Economists had expected  675,000 for the month, but unemployment fell …

Bargain Basement: President Biden has offered to drop his proposal for what was originally a $2 trillion infrastructure bill to just $1 trillion so long as Congress appropriates “new” money to pay for it  rather than taking it from other areas of the …

Bye Bye Bibi: Israel’s tough conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s held office for 12 years, is on the brink of being toppled by a former tech entrepreneur whose miniscule political party won only seven of the 120 seats in Parliament in …

Where’s the Beef?: A ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processor forced the shutdown of nine beef plants in the United States yesterday and disrupted production at poultry and pork plants. The company, JBS, said the majority of its plants …

Walking Tall: Democrats in the Texas Legislature walked out on Sunday night, depriving the Republicans a quorum, and blocking the vote before the midnight deadline on a bill that would reduce voting rights.   It was a dramatic but probably temporary victory. …

100 years of Solitude:  Today is the memorial Day, but also the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific and little known racial incidents in the country, a two-day rampage by white rioters who destroyed the prosperous black Greenwood neighborhood of …

Hear No Evil: Congressional Republicans have blocked the creation of a bi-partisan commission to investigate the sources and causes of the January 6th Capitol insurrection. The Republicans used their power of filibuster, requiring the Democrats to get 60 votes and they only …

The Ukraine Connection: Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are investigating whether Ukrainian officials were involved in a scheme to influence the 2020 presidential campaign, including using President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani to spread disinformation about President Biden and tilt the election …