You probably didn't spend the weekend wondering how a Chinese property giant could gut punch your nest egg. Well, welcome to the global economy. It's a small world ... smaller now given the shrinkage of your stock portfolio. "For more than two decades, Evergrande was China's largest developer, minting money from a property boom on a scale the world had never seen. With each success, Evergrande expanded into new areas — bottled water, professional sports, electric vehicles." And now? "Evergrande has become the country's most indebted company. It owes money to lenders, suppliers and foreign investors. It owes unfinished apartments to home buyers and has racked up more than $300 billion in unpaid bills." How bad is it? Evergrande Gave Workers a Choice: Loan Us Cash or Lose Your Bonus. (An NYT gift article for ND readers.)
+ "The biggest fear investors should have with the crisis gripping overly indebted Chinese real estate developer Evergrande is global contagion, argues Goldman Sachs." (Just what we need. More global contagion.)
+ Xi Sheds Capitalism: "The Chinese President is not just trying to rein in a few big tech and other companies and show who is boss in China. He is trying to roll back China's decadeslong evolution toward Western-style capitalism and put the country on a different path entirely." Speaking of Chinese trends that could impact your bottom line. WSJ: Xi Jinping Aims to Rein In Chinese Capitalism, Hew to Mao's Socialist Vision. Hewly shit.
2
THAT 70S SHOW RERUN
"I began my obstetrics and gynecology residency at a San Antonio hospital on July 1, 1972 ... At the hospital that year, I saw three teenagers die from illegal abortions. One I will never forget. When she came into the ER, her vaginal cavity was packed with rags. She died a few days later from massive organ failure, caused by a septic infection ... For me, it is 1972 all over again." Alan Braid in WaPo (gift article for ND readers): Why I violated Texas's extreme abortion ban.
An Open Letter to Hollywood: No one plays off Jean Smart. Ever. The director of this year's Emmys made some odd decisions about what content could be squeezed into three hours. For example, it seemed like a good idea to cue the play off music while Ted Effing Lasso was giving a speech, but to retain about 45 minutes for Cedric the Entertainer's bits. Predictably, Ted Lasso, The Queen, and Mare of Easttown took home a lot of awards (full list here). (Sidenote: I've never been this happy about anything.) Michaela Coel gave the night's coolest speech: "Visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear—from it, from us—for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence." There were some snubs and surprises. And The Handmaid's Taleset a record for most Emmys losses in a season after losing in 21 categories. (That might be because Texas lawmakers moved the show into the documentary category.) In a pretty tough category, The Queen's Gambit won best limited or anthology series. Chess Bump!
5
ASSASSINATION MOD
"The assassin, a skilled sniper, took up his position, calibrated the gun sights, cocked the weapon and lightly touched the trigger. He was nowhere near Absard, however. He was peering into a computer screen at an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away. The entire hit squad had already left Iran." NYT: The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine. (Gift article for ND readers. Also, wow.)
6
DEPORT-AU-PRINCE
"More than 320 migrants arrived in Port-au-Prince on three flights Sunday, and Haiti said six flights were expected Tuesday. In all, U.S. authorities moved to expel many of the more than 12,000 migrants camped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas." US launches mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas.
7
I WANT YOU TO WANT ME
"It took nearly six months for Healy, who has a decade of experience in industrial design, to find a new job. Meanwhile, headlines touted a record number of job openings, and many employers said they were doing everything in their power to entice potential employees. For Healy and many others, the situation just doesn't make sense — there's an incongruity between what they are hearing about jobs and what is actually happening." Why everybody's hiring but nobody's getting hired.
8
CIRCUS JERK
"The apathy … was incredible in a way: There were only a couple of hundred people showing up, even though 70 percent of Republicans believe the insurrection was OK. There were Proud Boys in attendance, but you couldn't tell because they were instructed not to show their insignias." The Capitol Riot Sequel Was a Sad Media Circus. (And the original was a sad justice circus, at least until those who pushed for it to happen are no longer holding gigs in places like the US Senate.)
9
POPE A DOPE
"The decision by the Cobb County School District to use euphemisms in its public statement to describe the defacing of a boys' bathroom at Pope High School with swastikas and the phrase 'Hail Hitler' has not gone unnoticed. Neither a statement by the district Friday to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution nor a letter home to Pope parents mentioned antisemitism, opting for such terms as 'students misbehave' and 'hateful graffiti.'" They didn't mention the antisemitism (or the poor spelling). Anti-Defamation League: Cobb should not downplay antisemitism at Pope High School. And here's the kicker: The school's "passage of their resolution banning Critical Race Theory could tie their hands in responding to and countering incidents of hate through educational initiatives for the school community."
+ Brazil's Unvaccinated Far-Right President Bolsonaro Forced to Eat Pizza on the Street in NYC. (That doesn't quite seem like an apt punishment considering his crimes.)
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As if parenting wasn't hard enough, another concern has been added to the growing list of pandemic stresses. Today's story looks at a problem lurking in our children's futures as we continue to digitize everything in our world without adequate security. And while far from positive, it's an important reminder to actively protect yourself and your communities from scams and more.
TODAY'S STORY
Sensitive student information is being sold on the dark web Fri Sep 10
America's surge in ransomware attacks this year has a new victim: public school students. A recent analysis by NBC News shows how data from over 1,200 K-12 schools has been published online so far this year. These breaches include students' sensitive and identifying information, from name and date of birth to social security numbers, health records, and even whether or not they're an immigrant, homeless, or economically challenged.
Criminal hackers willing to pay for this exposed data then use it to try and open credit cards or loans in the student's name. For example, hackers broke into a school district near the Texas southern border last December and gained access to a spreadsheet titled "Basic student information" with roughly 16,000 students' information. The sheet included all aforementioned categories of data in addition to flags for possible dyslexia. After following the FBI's recommendation to not pay the ransom, the hackers then posted the information online.
While parents were notified, there aren't guidelines for what parents should do in this situation. The district's cyber insurance paid for free credit monitoring for staff, but parents are left to be their kid's data security and privacy experts.
Worse yet is when students are unaware their data has been exposed and they remain targets of identity theft for the rest of their lives. In fact, many schools NBC reached out to didn't know their students' information was circulating on the dark web. Some may not realize their credit has been damaged through these hackers until they apply for credit as adults.
Such ransomware attacks are a more recent threat, but schools have been struggling with data breaches for nearly a decade. A 2020 report found at least 99 K-12 schools were involved in unintentional data breaches, a quarter of which were students accidentally leaking information while attempting to change their grades. Schools have also faced other costly attacks. The same 2020 study found that over $17.5 million in education funds have been stolen from districts through email phishing scams preying on school staff — one Texas school district lost more than $600,000 as a result.
And while the Biden administration has made stopping these extremely disruptive attacks a national-security priority, guidance for schools is not yet the focus. Data on the severity of such breaches is also limited as schools are currently not required to report when data breaches occur.
The president of Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit helping victims of data theft, says the number one way to protect students is to freeze a child's credit. Though time-consuming, completing the process with all three major credit monitoring services (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) is seen as an essential step for child digital safety.
Wednesday: Kosovo loves the U.S. even more after military donation
ASCII-ING ABOUT THE NEWS
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