Exuding Confidence.

The largest IT outage in history.

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1. Businesses across the world, from airlines to financial services and media groups, have been hit by a global IT outage, causing massive disruption to a wide range of services and operations. Thousands of workers were unable to log on to their computers on Friday morning, disrupting businesses from finance to healthcare, in what is shaping up to be one of the most widespread IT outages ever. Australian businesses were the first to warn of problems, with the operations of retailers including Woolworths and 7-Eleven hit. Sydney airport said “a global technical outage” had affected its operations. In Europe, airlines and airports warned of disruption. The US Federal Aviation Administration said Delta, United and American Airlines had asked to ground flights due to take off. “I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history,” said Troy Hunt, a prominent security consultant, in a social media post. “This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.” (Source: ft.com)

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2. For more than two years, inflation has eclipsed everything else at the Federal Reserve. In a shift eagerly awaited by global markets, that’s poised to change. US central bankers are ready to cut interest rates in September amid growing confidence that price stability is within sight – while risks to the labor market have grown. They’ve laid the groundwork for the coming move in speeches over recent weeks, and Chair Jerome Powell will likely flag it more explicitly after a policy meeting on July 30-31. It’s not quite a done deal. Fed officials still want to see monthly price numbers continuing to trend down toward their 2% annual inflation goal before they commit to lowering borrowing costs from a two-decade high. But Powell and his colleagues are also determined not to squander the chance of sticking a soft landing for the US economy, which is showing at least a few signs of losing steam. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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3. Former President Donald J. Trump, exuding confidence, concluded the Republican National Convention on Thursday with repeated calls for support, not just from the narrow coalition that barely secured his election in 2016 but also from Americans who have held him in disdain but who might now turn to him for leadership. In a speech that ran for more than an hour and a half, the Republican nominee spoke in hushed tones as he described at length the shooting he survived in Butler, Pa., last weekend. He did veer into familiar partisan attacks and insults, labeling Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former House speaker, “crazy,” and lashing out at the man who defeated him in 2020, President Biden. But he tried to fall back on calls for unity. “I am here tonight to lay out a vision for the whole nation,” he said. “To every citizen, whether you are young or old, man or woman, Democrat, Republican or independent, Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, I extend to you a hand of loyalty and friendship.” A transcript of Trump’s speech is here. (Sources: nytimes.com, wsj.com)

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4. Gerry Baker:

I have been attending party conventions since 1996 and I can’t recall a more exuberant mood among Republicans than I have seen this week in this post-industrial city on the shores of Lake Michigan — rapturous, you might even call it. (Source: thetimes.com)

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5. Peggy Noonan:

The headline: This wasn’t a divided party, it was a party united. It wasn’t only Mr. Trump’s party, it was an explicitly Trumpian party.

We saw something epochal: the finalization and ratification of a change in the essential nature of one of the two major political parties of the world’s most powerful nation. It is now a populist, working-class, nationalist party. That is where its sympathies, identification and affiliation lie. There will be shifts, stops and accommodations in the future, no party ever has a clear line, history intervenes, but it is changed, and there will be no going back. (Source: wsj.com)

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6. President Joe Biden’s reelection bid appeared to be nearing the point of collapse on Thursday, amid a cascade of warnings from the Democratic Party’s top leaders that they have lost confidence in his candidacy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi each told Biden in separate meetings over the last week that he should reconsider his reelection run or risk losing and dragging the rest of the party down with him. Schumer was “pretty harsh” in his conversation with Biden, said one senior Hill Democrat briefed on the discussion. Rep. Adam Schiff, the likely next senator from California, who is close with Pelosi, became the 20th House Democrat to publicly call for Biden to step aside. On Thursday Senator Jon Tester, a Democratic incumbent in heavily Republican Montana, became the second sitting senator to publicly call on Biden to end his campaign. And House Democrats, party operatives and former administration officials who want Biden to step aside expressed growing optimism that the intensifying pressure campaign would finally crack the shell of defensiveness, denial and unwavering determination constructed around Biden. Others viewed the leaks of the days-old conversations as a sign the petitioners have grown impatient. “This is an absolute debacle,” said one senior Democratic official who is close to congressional leadership. “Only amateurs see a path. The red is mushrooming all across the map.”   (Source: politico.com)

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