Killing to Protect Stores
More NYC bodega workers could kill to protect themselves as store crime up 70%: industry leader
More Big Apple bodega workers may end up killing violent customers to protect themselves and their business, an industry leader told The Post Thursday - as he claimed crime is up 70 to 80% in bodegas and supermarkets citywide.

Frank Garcia, chairman of the National Association of Latinos State Chambers of Commerce, issued the grim warning after Manhattan bodega clerk, Jose Alba, wound up charged with murder for fatally stabbing an ex-con he was trying to fend off.

"Crime is up 70% to 80% at our bodegas and supermarkets," Garcia said, citing a recent survey conducted by the Bodega Association and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The survey also found that 80% of respondents who work in bodegas said crime was their biggest issue, according to Garcia. Supermarkets in The Bronx and northern Manhattan also cited crime as their top concern, he added.

"The crime is not just in the bodegas. It's in the supermarkets. It's in the retail stores that sell cellphones. We have issues with the restaurants," Garcia said. He warned more bodega workers, as well other merchants, are going to "kill more people because we have to defend our business."

Currently, there is no specific NYPD crime statistics for locations like bodegas. If the NYPD won't collate the data in a bid to reduce the crime rates, Garcia said he was going to rope in The City University of New York and John Jay College of Criminal Justice to help.

Garcia said the concerns about rising crime was raised with city Small Business Commissioner Kevin Kim three weeks ago. He added his chamber was going to have a town hall meeting on crime and invite Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul in an attempt to convince them to take rising crime in bodegas and supermarkets more seriously. nypost.com

Bomb-Sniffing Dogs with Electronic Harnesses Roll Out Across NYC
NYPD deploys K-9s with innovative electronic harness to prevent terrorist attacks
The New York Police Department is equipping its bomb-sniffing canines with an upgraded electronic harness that can sense biological and radiological threats that go unnoticed by the dogs. Police officials say the dogs will patrol the city's subway system - an area frequently targeted by terrorists.

The new technology, called "Transit Enhanced Detection Dog," or TREDD, equips regular explosive detection K-9s with a wearable harness replete with sensors that detect a variety of threats, including explosive, biological, chemical or radiological weapons. The device then sends the readings to a mobile command post in real time.

Lieutenant John Pappas, commander of Transit Bureau K9 in Queens, came up with the idea for the device after receiving intelligence that terrorist organizations were looking to bypass the city's security systems.

Pappas explained that terrorists were building explosive devices that dogs were not trained to detect. With the help of grant money, Pappas and the NYPD partnered with Massachusetts-based private technology company Blueforce Development Corporation to address the new threat.

Readings are sent from the device to a mobile command post in real time, which allows NYPD officers on the ground to detect threats that would otherwise be imperceptible. Command post officers can also see where the dogs are at all times.

More recently, the technology was deployed during the April 12 Brooklyn subway shooting, when the NYPD initially responded to reports of several undetonated explosive devices in subway stations before determining the reports were unfounded.

For the NYPD and other departments around the country, COVID lockdowns afforded more time to revamp their K-9 units. The NYPD also shared the tech with the Pentagon, giving them the option to upgrade their K-9 capabilities.  apbweb.com

From Defund to Refund in Crime-Ridden Philadelphia
Philadelphia spends almost a billion dollars on policing in new budget aimed at addressing gun violence
In an effort to combat gun violence, Philadelphia has approved one of its largest budget increases in recent years, allotting nearly a billion dollars to the city's police department for 2023.

The Philadelphia Police Department will receive an increase of nearly $30 million under the new $5.8 billion city budget approved by the City Council in late June, bringing the total police allotment to $800 million.

The budget, proposed initially by Mayor Jim Kenney, aims to cover contractually obligated pay raises for officers. What began as a $23.7 million budget grew into nearly $30 million after additional expenses were added for recruitment, crime lab improvements and anti-violence programs.

The new budget puts Philadelphia police at the top when it comes to city spending. It is worth noting that two years ago the City Council froze police funding following the killing of George Floyd.

A large chunk of the budget will go toward a broad anti-violence plan pushed by the City Council last year, with $4 million going toward security camera installation and addressing quality-of-life issues, such as removing abandoned vehicles and cleaning up short dumping sites.

Citywide violence in the form of shootings remains an urgent issue debated by officials.

According to the Philadelphia P.D., there have been around 1,100 shooting victims in the city this year. Around a fifth of shooting victims died. The grim trend comes after an especially deadly year in 2021, which recorded a high of 562 homicides, with the majority due to gunfire. privateofficerbreakingnews.blogspot.com

The Link Between Gun Deaths & Gun Sales
The staggering scope of U.S. gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings
The spate of shooting attacks in communities such as Highland Park, Ill.; Uvalde, Tex.; and Buffalo has riveted attention on America's staggering number of public mass killings. But the rising number of gun deaths in the United States extends beyond such high-profile episodes, emerging nearly every day inside homes, outside bars and on the streets of many cities, according to federal data.

The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data on gun background checks. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.

Guns are used in most suicides and are almost entirely responsible for an overall rise in homicides across the country from 2018 to 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There is not one clear answer as to what is driving the rise in bloodshed, experts said, but possible factors include the stress of the coronavirus pandemic, fraying ties between the police and the public, mounting anger, worsening mental strain and the sheer number of guns in America.

"You put all that into a pressure cooker," said Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami, "and you let the pressure cooker blow up."

The ample access to guns plays a significant role, experts said. Americans are arming themselves in the face of deepening fears and divisions, frightening public incidents involving gunfire or violence, or simply because they know others may also have guns. washingtonpost.com

New Federal Gun Safety Legislation
Biden says gun violence has turned America's communities into 'killing fields'
President Joe Biden on Monday said gun violence has turned everyday places in America into "killing fields" as he marked the passage of the first significant federal gun safety legislation in 30 years.

Biden said the package he signed into law represents "an important start," but more needs to be done to curb the alarming rate of shootings.

"Now's the time to galvanize this movement because that's our duty to the people of the nation. That's what we owe those families in Buffalo, where a grocery store became a killing field. That's what we owe those families in Uvalde, where an elementary school became a killing field. That's what we owe those families in Highland Park, where on July Fourth, a parade became a killing field," Biden said.

Biden touted the investments the new legislation makes in community violence prevention, including $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs -- which through court orders can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms -- and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.

It also closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law, known as the "boyfriend loophole," which barred individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, partners with whom they shared children, or partners with whom they cohabitated, from having guns. Old statutes didn't include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children. cnn.com

There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to cover
News organizations must make agonizing decisions about which shootings deserve on-the-ground reporting, and for how long

Private security guards coming to downtown Annapolis this summer

Neighborhoods with more dogs have less crime, study suggests

National Association for Shoplifting Prevention
Provide Opportunity; Create Loyalty

The Most Loyal Employees are Born of Second Chances

More and more companies are successfully implementing programs to hire people re-entering the workforce after a period of incarceration. There is great value in this effort as it is not only critical to identifying new talent in a shrinking workforce but also in bolstering brand value by helping people re-build their lives.

This is not to say that companies are looking at hiring through rose-colored glasses or foregoing the safeguards and hiring protocols currently in use. They continue to use the traditional protective tools and assessment measures but are viewing these tools through a new lens that evaluates each person on their individual merits and relevant skill set rather than focusing solely on a past or even a current transgression.

Employers will reap the same benefits found in re-entry hiring when current employees who make a first-time mistake are given a similar second chance. Offering education programs to otherwise productive employees after a first-time policy violation or lapse in judgment, is an opportunity to reinforce brand value and re-build, rather than break down, your workforce and community.

The challenge will be how to reconcile historical precedent with present need. How to shift from a no tolerance directive to giving second chances when appropriate. The answer is a corporate policy change. The truth is that education gives retailers a third and better choice beyond the tradition of compulsory discharge or simply "writing them up." Moreover, today's focus on inclusiveness and Corporate Social Responsibility make it the ideal time to modify past policy to offer second-chance education; thus pairing valuable opportunity with needed accountability.

Click to learn more about the Workplace integrity Project and Better Choices employee education. linkedin.com

Gas Station Owners Caught in the Middle of a Political War Over Prices
Gas Station Owners, Blamed When Prices Rose, Face Risks as Prices Fall
Gasoline prices are falling almost as quickly as they rose, creating new headaches for the mom-and-pop entrepreneurs and other independent operators who run roughly half of U.S. gas stations.

Heightened volatility makes those pump pricing decisions painstaking for gas station owners such as Doug Robinson. When prices drop, he still has to sell the fuel he already bought for his two stations in central Texas at a higher amount. Because he doesn't know where prices will go next, he also risks losing money on every new fuel order he places.

As gas prices rose to a record of more than $5 a gallon this year, gas station owners have gotten caught up in the political debate over how to tame soaring inflation. They say few truly understand their situation.

The average price of regular gasoline dipped to $4.68 a gallon on Sunday, according to AAA, down about 12 cents from a week ago and 6% since a high of $5.02 in June. But better-than-expected consumer demand for gasoline this summer and further instability in Europe amid the war in Ukraine could make this reprieve short-lived, said Garrett Golding, a senior business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Those gas station owners typically make small margins on fuel itself, earning more from other items such as cigarettes and coffee. They face competition from other independent gas station owners, as well as chain retailers such as Costco Wholesale Corp. and Kroger Co., who can obtain supplies at an advantageous price and forsake fuel margins altogether, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at price tracker GasBuddy. wsj.com

Retail Foot Traffic Boost Coming?
Placer.ai: Workers returning to offices but...

Foot traffic to office buildings in several key U.S. cities continues to rebound.

Workers piled into office buildings in New York City, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco in June, according to data from foot traffic analytics firm Placer.ai's Office Building Indexes. But the data also showed that visits are still down considerably from the pre-pandemic era.

Compared to last year, office buildings are humming. Placer.ai found that year-over-year visits were up 54.4%, 38.3%, 84.6%, and 31.2% in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston, respectively. Visits were up in each city in June compared to May also, with visits jumping 17% in NYC, 7.6% in Chicago, 19.3% in SF, and 5.1% in Boston.

If buildings hope to get back to pre-pandemic visit levels, however. There's still a lot of work ahead, according to the report. Compared to June 2019, visits in June were still down considerably in NYC (down 33.5%), Chicago (down 40.9%), SF (down 60.4%), and Boston (down 24.6%). chainstoreage.com

88 Sephora Store Closures in Russia
LVMH's Beauty Retailer Sephora Makes Permanent Exit From Russia
Sephora, the cosmetics retailer owned by LVMH, agreed to sell its Russian subsidiary, making it the latest brand to pull out of the country following its invasion of Ukraine. LVMH is selling Sephora's Russia business to the local general manager, the company said on Monday in an emailed statement. In early March, the group temporarily closed its Russian stores.

Sephora's exit comes as European and US sanctions on the country have made operations in Russia increasingly complex. It joins Nike Inc. which also said last month that it was leaving Russia.

"It sounds very rational indeed that Western companies in general will not go on paying rent and labor forever in Russia if operations cannot be resumed," Luca Solca, an analyst at Sanford C Berstein, said by email.

The move will provide "continuity" for employees, according to Sephora, which employed 1,200 workers in 88 Russian stores and in operations to support the company's website in the country. bnnbloomberg.ca

Walmart to buy electric vehicle fleet for last-mile deliveries
Walmart has a definitive agreement to buy 4,500 electric delivery vehicles from Canoo, the two companies announced Tuesday morning.

Gap Inc. CEO Sonia Syngal steps down

Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos to Step Down, Insider Owen to Take Over

Discover @ Kohl's to feature diverse, women-owned brands at 600 stores
 
Shoe companies pause hiring and investing as they brace for weaker sales

Law Enforcement Agencies Under Attack
Cyberattacks against law enforcement are on the rise
Resecurity, a Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company protecting Fortune 500 companies worldwide, has registered an increase in malicious activity targeting law enforcement agencies at the beginning of Q2 2022. Threat actors are hacking email and other accounts which belong to law enforcement officers and their internal systems.

The emerging trend consists of threat actors sending fake subpoenas and EDR's (Emergency Data Requests) to their victims from the hacked law enforcement email accounts. Using such capabilities, the threat actors are targeting major technology companies such as Apple, Facebook (Meta), Snapchat, and Discord are to name a few, to collect sensitive information about targets of interest. The replies received by the bad actors contain sensitive details which could/are being used for leverage extortion, or cyberespionage. Such incidents have become especially notable in cybercriminal group activities such as LAPSUS$ and Recursion Group.

Resecurity has been observing multiple Dark Web marketplaces where cybercriminals are monetizing their efforts by selling credentials belonging to police officers of various foreign countries (e-mails, VPNs, SSO, etc.). One example of an email account previously used to send fake EDR requests on behalf of the Bangladesh Police was recently covered in a Bloomberg article illustrating the risk of such tactics.

Based on experts' opinion, one of the biggest concerns is the visible insecurity of the law enforcement IT infrastructure, such infrastructure creates significant risk to our society, not just in cyberspace but in real life too. Organized crime, terrorists and extremist groups may leverage such access for malicious purposes.

The most typical scenarios involving attacks on law enforcement systems include:

● Protest activity (15%)
● Unauthorized access (25%)
● Cyberespionage (40%)
● Law enforcement systems and applications abuse (8%)
● Data theft (12%)

Based on the published research, such malicious activity is especially visible in countries of Latin America, South-East Asia, and offshore jurisdictions. Last year, Resecurity registered a targeted security incident related to one of the law enforcement organizations in the Middle East and its counterpart in the face of one of the international police organizations. helpnetsecurity.com

Accelerate 'Deep Tech' Cyber Advancements
White House backed fund promises to accelerate 'deep tech' advancements in cybersecurity
An investment fund supported by the White House and partially bankrolled by tech heavyweights Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt and Craig Newmark is making a big bet that "deep technologies" will give the U.S. the edge over China - especially when it comes to cybersecurity.

The U.S. needs to do more to win the "great nation competition," according to Gilman Louie, CEO of the newly launched America's Frontier Fund (AFF), and that means supporting innovation in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, fusion, microelectronics, 6G cellular technology, advanced manufacturing and synthetic biology.

Most of these technologies will soon be increasingly embedded in cybersecurity, he said.

AFF will be a hub for what Louie calls the Quad Investor Network (QIN), a partnership that AFF will lead with other global democracies to invest jointly in emerging technology. The White House announced the QIN effort in late May, about three weeks after it said Louie had been selected alongside three others for the intelligence advisory board.

Cybersecurity has been a White House priority since Biden took office and the administration increased efforts to work alongside the private sector after the SolarWinds and Colonial Pipeline shook the economy during the president's first term.

The NSCAI report focused heavily on the urgency of U.S. investment not only in artificial intelligence, but also in the quantum sciences, microelectronics and other issue sets that AFF intends to prioritize.

"The White House is looking for new ways to accelerate innovation in the the tech competition and the NSCAI is the foundational report on this stuff," Lewis said. "A lot of this rotates around the conclusion of a few years ago that Washington needed to reconnect to Silicon Valley. Things that drive innovation and government policy are not the same and so this is an effort to make that connection." cyberscoop.com

Federal Cyber Insurance Intervention?
The cyber insurance market has a critical infrastructure problem
Growing worries about digital assaults on critical infrastructure compounded by the war in Ukraine are reviving questions about the ability of cybersecurity insurance to cover the risks of a catastrophic attack.

"The cyber insurance industry is not just discovering the cyber risk, with respect to critical infrastructure," said Michael Phillips, chief risk officer at cyber insurance firm Resilience. "I think what is new is there is a more vivid understanding in the market that the time to understand systemic cyber risk and the risk to critical infrastructure is now."

The challenge has policymakers wondering if and when the government should intervene with its own form of insurance, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report last month showed.

"The Department of the Treasury's Federal Insurance Office (FIO) and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both have taken steps to understand the financial implications of growing cybersecurity risks," the report notes. "However, they have not assessed the extent to which risks to critical infrastructure from catastrophic cyber incidents and potential financial exposures warrant a federal insurance response."

Cybersecurity insurance has existed in some form since at least the early 2000s. The coverage initially started out as a means to deal with cybersecurity issues such as data breaches and the lawsuits and regulatory penalties that could ensue.

That changed rapidly in 2017 when the WannaCry and NotPetya attacks showed how quickly a cyberattack could have resounding consequences around the globe. Then came another crisis moment for the industry: a rapid rise in ransomware attacks and an increase in ransomware demands, including a high-profile ransomware attack on U.S. fuel provider Colonial Pipeline.  cyberscoop.com

Protecting Your Business from Future Cyber Attacks
VIDEO: The impact of DNS attacks on global organizations
Often we see stories about cyber attacks that breached an organisations' security parameters, and advice on how we can protect against future threats. However, what is often missed, is just how these threat actors managed to breach a system, and as such, the fact that the Domain Name System (DNS) probably played a very large role in the attacker's entry point.

In this Help Net Security video, Chris Buijs, Chief Evangelist at EfficientIP, talks about the importance of making the DNS as part of an organisation's security strategy. helpnetsecurity.com

CISA and NPower offer free entry-level cybersecurity training

Phishing Attacks Shame, Scare Victims into Surrendering Twitter, Discord Credentials

Prime Day for Fraudsters Too
There's another huge reason to be careful shopping online this Amazon Prime Day

Online payment fraud is only getting worse, Juniper finds

Ahead of the Amazon Prime Day 2022 sales, online shoppers have been urged to be on their guard once again against scams and online fraud. A report from Juniper research has estimated that if current trends persist, the total overall losses to online payment fraud for merchants across the world between 2023 and 2027 will top $343 billion.

With shoppers keener than ever to land a good bargain, many are falling victim to a range of attacks, ranging from money transfer scams, purchasing fake or non-existent goods, or simply having their card details swiped by malicious websites.

Juniper's report found physical goods purchases are set to be the largest single source of losses, set to make up nearly half (49%) of all online payment fraud losses globally over the next five years, a 110% growth from the current figure.

The firm found that poor address verification processes in developing markets are also becoming a major fraud risk, with fraudsters specifically targeting physical goods due to their resell potential. The report adds that the predicted losses are the equivalent of over 350% of Apple's reported net income in the 2021 fiscal year; showing the massive extent of these losses.

Merchants and resellers are being urged to ensure their anti-fraud protection systems are as robust as possible, and provide a combination of verification tools, including multiple sources of address verification and multi-factor authentication, to make sure their customers stay safe.

The report comes shortly after security researchers from Check Point found the volume of Amazon-related phishing emails has spiked by 37% month-on-month, alongside 1,900 new domains linked in some regard to the ecommerce giant, at least 9.5% of which have been deemed "risky".  techradar.com

Target's Answer to Prime Day?
Target Makes a Bold Move Ahead of Amazon Prime Day
Target has decided to offer college students a 20% discount through its Target Circle rewards program. It's also bringing back tax-free weekends and will extend its Teacher Prep event from July 17 through Sept. 10. That's six weeks longer than the program, which offers teachers 15% off on school supplies, usually runs.

"We know the back-to-school season signals an important milestone for millions of families across the country - and we're here to help by introducing even more ways for guests to save and find everything they need all in one convenient location," said Target Chief Merchandising Officer Jill Sando.

Target will also offer its special "Deal Days," essentially its answer to Amazon's Prime Day, from July 11-13. thestreet.com
 
Buying Groceries Online vs. In-Store: We Find Out Which Is Cheaper