WSJ What’s News - Major IT Outage Hits Millions of Windows Users Around the World

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

A.M. Edition for July 19. A tech outage sweeps around the globe, knocking out operations for banks, media companies and emergency services and causing flights to be grounded. Plus, Donald Trump accepts the Republican presidential nomination, calling for unity in his speech—but also reverting to familiar attacks, says the WSJ’s Washington editor Damian Paletta. And, Houthi militants in Yemen claim responsibility for an overnight blast in Tel Aviv. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Bacardi. Its trade dress and the bat device are trademarks of Bacardi and Company Limited. Rum 40% alcohol by volume. A major IT outage hits businesses, banks and airlines around the world. Plus, Trump calls for unity in his acceptance of the GOP presidential nomination, but shifts to familiar attacks. The last 60 or 70 minutes of his speech was much more divisive. In fact, it's the kind of language that reminds Americans of him and the kind of way he led as president that a lot of Americans didn't agree with.

And Tel Aviv is struck by a drone in an attack claimed by Houthi militants. It's Friday, July 19th. I'm Kate Bullivant for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. stories moving your world today. A major IT outage has left businesses, financial firms, airlines and emergency services across the world unable to access computing systems this morning. An update from cyber security software company CrowdStrike appeared to cause outages for millions of Microsoft Windows users, disrupting businesses ranging from airlines to the London Stock Exchange. The Federal Aviation Authority has issued ground-stop

orders for several major airlines, including American, Delta Air and United. Some airlines in Europe and Australia also said they were experiencing disruptions. Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Microsoft said on X that it was investigating user issues across various apps and services. CrowdStrike shares slumped in off-hours trading. Last night, Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, promising a return to the types of policies that marked his first term in office. In a freewheeling speech, Trump went from expressing gratitude for surviving an attempt on his life to sharing criticism on the Biden administration and its

policies, as well as highlighting the economic policies he'd pursue if he's re-elected. Every day I will strive to honor the trust you have placed in me, and I will never, ever let you down. I promise that. I will never let you down. Our Luke Vargas was in Milwaukee for the moment, along with a team of Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, and he brings us this report. He started off somber, surrounded at times by photographs of his bloodied face from last Saturday's assassination attempt. Trump recounted from his perspective the moment when he narrowly avoided the bullet. I'm not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here.

But before long, his tone shifted. Trump had said earlier in the week that he'd torn up his prepared remarks in order to focus on national unity. But last night, he frequently went off script. We heard claims that the justice system was being weaponized against him, insults directed at crazy Nancy Pelosi, and warnings that Democrats were destroying the country and false claims of stolen elections. Damian Palletta is the journal's Washington coverage chief. Here's how he saw it. The first part, roughly the first 20 minutes, was a very emotional part of the speech. It was like something, quite frankly, I'd never seen from him before, heard from him before. He was kind of talking about life in a very human way, a very

mortal way. And it was the kind of thing that I think would connect with millions and millions of voters. But shortly after that, the speech changed and went in a direction that probably was not what his advisors had hoped for or intended. The whole convention to that point had been based on trying to emphasize unity, how the party was united, how the party was kind of speaking with one voice. And the last 60 or 70 minutes of his speech was much more divisive. In fact, it's the kind of language that reminds Americans of him and the kind of way he led as president that a lot of Americans didn't agree with. Damian also said our reporting team took note of some unsupported claims that Trump made. There was a lot of exaggerated statistics.

In fact, we went through a lot of exaggerated statistics. In fact, we went through a lot of the statistics he mentioned. We couldn't find any of the statistics that he mentioned that were matching facts. And so I think he maybe missed an opportunity to be straight with America. As for a vision for his second term, Trump put a few things front and center, calling each of them a crisis. First was an illegal immigration crisis. He said that was feeding crime, disease, poverty, and misery, some uniquely 2024 allusions to economic hardship. And he once again put forward mass deportations of undocumented migrants as his plan to fix it, something that is the number two item on the GOP platform.

The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country. Even larger than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The next crisis that Trump cited was inflation, a front and center issue for voters, and one that Journal of Finance reporter Paul Kiernan says that President Biden is vulnerable on, given that consumer prices have risen 19% since he took office. But Trump exaggerated just how severe the situation is. Trump gave some remarks that grocery prices are up 57%. That's not right. They're up 21%. 57 percent. That's not right. They're up 21 percent. He said gasoline has risen 60 or 70 percent. That's not right. Gasoline has risen 35 percent. And he said that mortgage rates have quadrupled and the average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has not quite tripled. It's doubled,

but it hasn't quite tripled. As for addressing inflation, Trump mentioned his proposal to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers. He called for more domestic oil production. And in a remark that caught Paul's attention, Trump said he would bring down interest rates after telling Bloomberg earlier this week that it would be wrong for the Fed to do so before the election. This is really sort of the reason that we don't let presidents set interest rates, because they might be tempted to make interest rate decisions that benefit them politically and might goose the economy or the stock market right before they have a big election. And finally, Trump talked about an international crisis amid war in Europe and the Middle East and risks of new conflicts from Taiwan to Korea, saying he would, quote, end every single international crisis that the current

administration has created, end quote, and that he'd do it with a mere telephone call. On that score, he was really light on specifics. That's Journal National Security reporter Brett Forrest. He said he would end the war in Ukraine, but he didn't explain how that might be done. In the past, he has said that he would resolve that conflict in 24 hours. He said the same with the war in Gaza. Responding to Trump, a Biden advisor said the speech was, quote, all about him, no plan for the future, exactly what people hate about politicians. But Damien said Trump's remarks, especially when they reminded voters of the harsher side

of the former president, may not have been about winning over his skeptics. And in so doing, they leave the 2024 campaign in a different place than it was just yesterday. Now, the question is where this race is right now with President Biden in such deep trouble and under mounting pressure from Democrats to get out of the race. Maybe former President Trump didn't need to deliver a big unifying speech. And so maybe what he wanted to do was kind of rally his base and remind them of the fighter that he used to be. You just heard a report filed by our team in Milwaukee.

For more news and analysis coming out of the convention, you can follow the journal's full coverage at wsj.com. And while Trump is feeling the electoral wind at his back, Biden's re-election bid is moving into a perilous stretch, with top Democrats and donors now preparing for an election without President Biden on their ticket. People close to figures in the party say it now looks like a matter of when, not if, Biden bows out of the presidential race. And in the past day or so, former President Barack Obama has told friends that Biden's path to victory is narrow, according to people familiar with the calls. An internal report compiled by democratic firm Blue Rose

Research and viewed by the Wall Street Journal showed Biden losing to Trump in a landslide, leading to fresh calls, both public and private, for the president to drop out of the race. Coming up, Houthi militants claim responsibility for a blast in Tel Aviv, and the U.S. tries to stop Russia from arming the group with anti-ship missiles. Those stories and more after the break. right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in?

Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Russian prosecutors are seeking an 18-year prison sentence in a high-security penal colony for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich after falsely accusing him of spying. A court spokeswoman said the verdict would come within hours.

She added, quote, the defendant did not admit guilt. Gershkovich, the journal and the US government have vehemently and repeatedly denied the allegation against him. Gershkovich was tried in a secret proceeding over three days in which he received few of the protections accorded to defendants in the US and other Western countries. Russian authorities have produced no public evidence to support their allegations. A drone strike has caused an explosion in Tel Aviv, marking the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital since the war in Gaza began more than nine months ago. Emergency services said one person was killed and several people were injured by the blast, which hit an apartment near the U.S. Embassy's branch office

shortly after 3 a.m. local time. The Israeli military is still investigating but said that based on the size of the unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV it clearly came from a militant group. The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack. The drone wasn't shot down and no air raid sirens went off before the blast due to a human error, the military said. Journal reporter Anat Peled is in Tel Aviv and says Israel increasingly finds itself facing a war on many fronts. So it's in its northern border with Lebanon. It's having a tit-for-tat kind of exchanges with the Hezbollah militant group. Israel is also facing attacks from Iraqi militias and Houthis. And it also is facing

tensions with Iran as well as the West Bank. The military said that it thwarted an additional UAV along Israel's eastern border overnight. But this is something that we're seeing on a daily basis, really. The Houthis have said that they will continue to target Tel Aviv in solidarity with Gaza. And we also know that Hezbollah is firing at Israel in solidarity with Gaza. So we have this coalition attacking Israel. Meanwhile, we're exclusively reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies are warning that Russia might arm Houthi militants in Yemen with advanced anti-ship missiles in retaliation for the Biden administration's support

for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia with US weapons. The White House has launched a confidential push to try to stop Moscow from delivering the missiles to the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea for eight months in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. It comes as the top US Middle East commander recently warned the Pentagon in a classified letter that military operations in the region are, quote, failing to deter the Houthis' attacks. A decision by Moscow to arm the Houthis would mark an escalation in its confrontation with Washington, which has been playing out mostly over the Ukraine war. with Washington, which has been playing out mostly over the Ukraine war.

And finally, here's what we're watching in markets today. Japan's inflation has stayed above the central bank's 2% target. According to data released today, consumer prices rose 2.8% from year earlier in June. That's likely to fuel some hope that interest rate increases might be coming soon. European airline stocks are moderately down after a global cyber outage and earnings from American Express are expected this morning, along with results from Halliburton and a few others.

And that's what's news for Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Anthony Banzi with supervising producer Christina Rocker. And I'm Kate Bullivant for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. We'll be back tonight with a new show. And until then, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.