So much at stake, including our Homeless

Coming off of a week where Republicans gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the Republican National Convention and witnessing them nominate Donald Trump as their nominee for President, my head, as a journalist, as a broadcaster, as a columnist, my cup of breaking news stories is running over, and my head is spinning.

- Thera Martin

Just two days prior to the RNC, Donald Trump was shot at by a 20-year-old man who lives near Butler, PA, where Trump was on hand July 13, 2024, for a Trump MEGA rally. The shooter narrowly missed, causing major harm to number 45. Ultimately, Trump was grazed by one of the bullets in his ear, and he will survive.

President Joe Biden caught Covid again, and Democrats on his side say this couldn't have happened at a worse time. Some polls are showing Biden trailing convicted felon Donald Trump by 3 or 4 points. News stories have been published for weeks, expressing concern about Biden's age (81) and his health. His poor performance at the first debate between Trump and himself this political cycle did not go well for Biden, further stoking the cry by some to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee for President.

And then, as if this past week weren't crazy enough, there was a worldwide IT nightmare--that took computer systems down from hospitals to airports, to city governments to police stations. The overnight IT outage started late Thursday evening, July 18, 2024, and impacted potentially millions of people worldwide, including many in the Philadelphia region. In the early morning hours of July 19, 2024, the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management realized something was wrong with its computers.

"Every server and computer that was powered up on our network during the update was affected. The City of Philadelphia employee systems were completely inoperable," said Melissa Scott, the city's chief information officer.

Critical services provided by the city remained up and running. Police and fire say they were able to answer every 911 call as they continued to work to make sure all of their computers were running.