Today’s edition of quick hits.
* What a mess: “Major airlines, medical facilities, businesses and police forces around the world are currently being affected by a massive information technology glitch affecting Microsoft cloud computing services early Friday. The cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said Friday that the outages were the result of one of its routine software updates gone wrong, and was ‘not a security incident or cyberattack.’”
* Indefensible: “American journalist Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison by a Russian court Friday after he was found guilty of espionage in a case that his employer, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have condemned as a sham.”
* The ICJ: “Policies and practices used by Israel in its occupation of Palestinian territories are in breach of international law, the United Nations’ top court said in a landmark opinion Friday. The International Court of Justice said in its opinion, which was read out by Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the world body, that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as ‘the regime associated with them,’ were established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”
* Alabama’s latest mass shooting: “An Alabama man is accused of fatally shooting his wife and four children inside their home overnight, according to officials with the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Alabama District Attorney’s Office.”
* I wonder if Trump would pardon Tyler Bradley Dyke: “A far-right extremist who already served time for his role in the racist 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville in 2017 was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison Friday for stealing a police shield and twice using it against officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
* If it seems as if many world leaders fear Trump’s return, but are starting to prepare for it anyway, it’s not your imagination: “Top foreign officials courted Donald Trump’s allies during the Republican National Convention, scoring face time and last-minute invites — all in order to build relationships if the former president returns to office. Foreign officials were caught off guard when Trump won the White House in 2016, and they don’t want to find themselves flat-footed again.”
* On a related note: “Mexico’s president called Donald Trump ‘a friend’ Friday and said he would write to the former U.S. president to warn him against pledging to close the border or blaming migrants for bringing drugs into the United States.”
Have a safe weekend.