Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Biden administration names 2 former NSA officials for cyber posts
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has selected two former senior National Security Agency officials for key cyber roles in his administration, the White House said Monday in moving to fill out a team whose role has grown more urgent after two major hacks that have consumed the government’s attention.
Chris Inglis, a former NSA deputy director, is being nominated as the government’s first national cyber director. Jen Easterly, a former deputy for counterterrorism at the NSA, has been tapped to run the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security. The two officials are expected to work closely with Anne Neuberger, the administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.
The cyber director position, a job mandated by law and championed by some lawmakers and outside experts, is designed to help ensure a more streamlined strategy and coordinated response to cyberattacks that invariably pull in officials from multiple agencies. In filling it with a veteran intelligence and national security expert, Biden is likely signaling that he recognizes the importance of cybersecurity as his administration continues to grapple with two major cyber incidents.
The administration is expected to soon announce a response to the SolarWinds hack, a breach of federal government agencies and American corporations believed to have been carried out by Russian hackers, and has also been occupied by an intrusion affecting Microsoft Exchange email software. The company has said that hack was carried out by Chinese state hackers.
Michigan lockdown urged: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that Michigan should “close things down” to help address the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak, days after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer instead urged people to voluntarily restrict certain activities.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky made the statement after being asked about some public health experts’ calls to send additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the state, for which the governor has been advocating. The administration of President Joe Biden has stuck with allocating to states proportionally by population.
“So when you have an acute situation, extraordinary number of cases like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine,” Walensky said, explaining that it takes two to six weeks to see the effect of vaccinations. “The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to back to where we were last spring, last summer and to shut things down, to flatten the curve, to decrease contact with one another, to test ... to contact trace.”
Syria chlorine attack probe: An investigation by the global chemical weapons watchdog found “reasonable grounds to believe” that a Syrian air force military helicopter dropped a chlorine cylinder on a Syrian town in 2018, sickening 12 people, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Monday.
It is the second time that the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team has concluded that Syrian government armed forces likely were responsible for a gas attack. Last year, the team also found reasonable grounds to believe that the Syrian Arab Air Force was responsible for attacks using chlorine and the nerve agent sarin in March 2017 in the town of Latamneh.
Syria has repeatedly been accused of using chemical weapons during the country’s grinding civil war. The government of President Bashar Assad denies the claims.
Scandal snares ex-PM: The controversy over former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of a now-bankrupt financial services firm deepened Monday as the government launched an investigation that opponents immediately labeled a “cover-up.”
The Conservative government announced plans for an independent inquiry into Greensill Capital after Cameron made his first comments on the scandal and two senior politicians called for new rules on contacts between business representatives and government officials.
Over the past month, a series of news reports revealed that Cameron lobbied government officials on behalf of Greensill, which collapsed last month, threatening thousands of jobs at a British steelmaker that it helped finance.
Cameron, who was employed as a part-time adviser to Greensill, said his work on behalf of the company didn’t break any rules or codes of conduct on the activities of former ministers.
“There are important lessons to be learnt,” Cameron said. “As a former prime minister, I accept that communications with government need to be done through only the most formal of channels, so there can be no room for misinterpretation.”
Ecuador, Peru elections: Ecuador will be led for the next four years by a conservative businessman after voters on Sunday rebuffed a left-leaning movement that yielded an economic boom and then a recession since taking hold of the presidency last decade. That election certainty, however, did not extend to neighboring Peru, where the presidential contest is headed to a runoff after none of the 18 candidates obtained more than 50% of the votes.
The South American nations held elections under strict public health measures amid a surging coronavirus pandemic that has brought on new lockdowns and exacerbated a general sense of fatigue. Peru, which also elected a new Congress, reported its highest single-day COVID19 death count just as voters headed to the polls.
The victory of former banker Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador came after less than half of one percentage point put him ahead of another candidate and allowed him to claim a spot in Sunday’s runoff.
Princes remember Philip: William and Harry paid tribute Monday to their grandfather, Prince Philip, remembering his wit, sense of duty and barbecue skills.
The brothers issued separate statements amid a family rift that led to Harry’s decision to step away from royal duties last year, and some have speculated that their grandfather’s funeral may offer an opportunity for them to talk over their differences. Philip, who had been married to Queen Elizabeth II for more than seven decades, died last week at 99.
Harry, who stepped away from royal duties last year and now lives in California, has arrived in the U.K. to attend Philip’s funeral service. His wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is pregnant and was advised by her doctor not to make the long journey.