FF 16: May 22nd, 2017 News Headlines

In U.S. News

Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner announced on Friday that former FBI Director James Comey will publicly testify before a Senate Committee.  No date has been set, but the appearance before the committee will likely come sometime after Memorial Day.

On Friday, former New York Congressmen Anthony Weiner plead guilty to sending obscene materials to a minor and will have to register as a sex offender.  Most of us remember that Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after it was revealed he was sending explicit texts to several women.    

In International News

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pledged $100,000 to a World Bank fund for women entrepreneurs.  The fund was the idea of Ivanka Trump.  The World Bank president, Jim Young Kim, stated, “This is really a stunning achievement. I've never seen anything come together so quickly, and I really have to say that Ivanka's leadership has been tremendous."

During his first foreign trip as President and while delivering a speech to dozens of Arab and Muslim nations leaders, President Trump called for those leader to do their fair share and help with the burden in the fight against extremists.  Trump also called on the leaders to, “Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy land. And drive them out of this Earth."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won reelection as president of that nation with 57% of the vote.  He won by a wide margin considering there were three other candidates in contention.  Rouhani is known as a more moderate leader by Iranian standards and was key in getting some sanctions eased in Iran when reaching a nuclear agreement with President Obama’s administration.  

Members of the NGO Operations Mercy were attacked at a house in Kabul, Afghanistan over the weekend.  One German aid worker was killed and her Afghan bodyguard was beheaded in the attack.  A Finnish aid worker was also abducted.  

Be sure to listen to our shows on May 15th and 16th for a discussion about the war in Afghanistan with international relations expert Matt Archibald.  Remember that our chats with guests are non-political and you get actual information.

In Tech News

Facebook is rolling out an option to order food within their platform, both on the mobile app and desktop site.  Unfortunately, we could not test the service and received a message that there aren’t any places that can deliver to you right now.

The ransomware WannaCry that has encrypted many computer files while demanding that a ransom be paid or the files will be permanently gone has spread to over 300,000 computers worldwide.  However, French researchers claimed over the weekend that they have found a way to save the files under certain conditions.  First, the computer must not have been rebooted and second, the deadline for the ransom must not have passed.    

A link to their solution can be found on our website.

WannaCry — Decrypting files with WanaKiwi + Demos:  https://goo.gl/iIFDZs

Also, be sure to check out our chat about Cyber Security with the producer of The Cyber Wire on May 10th’s show.