Who’s in Your Wallet, Abandoning Faith
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Vol. 8, No. 202
What’s in Your Wallet?:A Seattle woman has been arrested in what Capital One says was a breach of data for 100 million of its credit card customers. Federal prosecutors said the woman hacked the bank’s server at a cloud-computing company. Six million Canadian customers also were affected.
The hack captured 140,000 Social Security numbers.
Prosecutors say that between March 12 and July 17, 33-year-old Paige A. Thompson hacked Capital One’s rented server space then posted the information on the data-sharing site GitHub.
The stolen information included mostly consumer and small business credit card applications filed between 2005 and 2019. Names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, income, credit scores and some transaction history were included.
In the computer age version of “company officials say there’s no danger to the public,” Capital One is offering free credit monitoring services for its card holders.
This could be expensive for Capital One. The credit monitoring company Equifax just agreed to shell out $700 million to people whose data was stolen.
The Crowded Field:Democratic candidates for President duke it out for the second time starting tonight on CNN in debates staged in Detroit. The marquee matchup is Sen. Elizabeth Warren vs. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s in his second go at running for the White House. Don’t expect them to rip into each other — they both just want to come off as smart.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be fireworks. Like Kamala Harris attacking Joe Biden, it’s a way to get noticed.
Also in the lineup is South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who won the fund-raising race in the second quarter.
Filling out the dance card are Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, the spiritualist Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney, Steve Bullock, and the fading Beto O’Rourke who is nonetheless better known than the near-anonymous Delaney and Bullock.
Russian Style:While you can’t keep American Democrats from running for President, it’s dangerous to be an opposition politician in Russia. Alexei Navalny, 43, was released from the hospital after what may have been an intentional poisoning and was promptly sent to jail. He’s been a sharp critic of President Vladimir Putin and his circle of corruption. You can’t do that over there.
The Blotter:President Trump issued full pardons yesterday to five criminals serving time for drug trafficking, weapons sales, and illegal gambling. Trump also commuted the sentences of two other convicts, one of whom has a wife with terminal cancer and five children at home. — The FBI has arrested a woman identified as “the pink lady bandit” believed to be the perp in four bank robberies on the East coast. The robber often wore large sunglasses, yoga pants, and a baseball cap. The FBI likes to name bank robbers for physical characteristics. This one sometimes carried a hot pink purse, so they dubbed her the “Pink Lady Bandit.” — At least 52 people were killed in a prison riot in northeastern Brazil yesterday in the second clash between rival gangs since May. At least 16 of the victims were decapitated. — The shooter at the Gilroy, Calif. garlic festival was a 19-year-old wielding an AK-47 assault rifle he bought legally in Nevada. He killed a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a
man in his 20s.
The Obit Page:Michael Kittredge II, who founded Yankee Candle, the largest American candle company, has died at age 67. Kittredge made his first scented candle in his family’s garage in 1969, melting crayons to make a gift for his mother. Among the most popular of Yankee Candle’s scents are Macintosh, Christmas Cookie, and Midsummer’s Night. Just plain candle doesn’t sell that well.
Kissing it Goodbye:Joshua Harris, the well-known Christian author whose 1997 best-seller “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” became an inspiration for “purity” culture, announced that he is stepping back from his faith and some of his extreme views that included what he called his “bigotry” toward gay people.
The former pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., recounted several things he has apologized for in the past: “my self-righteousness, my fear-based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views of women in the church, and my approach to parenting to name a few.”
In his announcement Harris said, “I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry.”
So far, God has not struck him with a lightning bolt.
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