Morning Wire - AT&T’s Cellular Outage & Florida’s Epstein Bill | Afternoon Update | 2.22.24

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

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This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com slash wire. That's ramp.com slash wire today. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, February 22nd. And this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. To find a good connection.

AT&T says 75% of its network has been restored after it experienced a massive cell phone outage this morning. Tens of thousands of customers. customers were unable to place or receive calls, use the internet, and in some cases dial 911. The outage started around 5 a.m. Eastern time and then grew worse at 7 a.m. AT&T issued a statement acknowledging the problem, but have yet to identify the cause. The telecom giant said, quote, some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use

of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored. The city's most affected were Chicago and LA, Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston. T-Mobile and Verizon say their networks were not affected. Customers across the nation are reacting to the outage. I thought it was a blackout. Like, zombies were coming. Like, no. Like, I thought it was the end of the world.

I'm trying to meet with a client, and I had to leave where I'm coming from because I can't communicate at all. Yeah, I'm an electrician. Every morning, I receive a call to know where I'm heading forward to work. Right now, I'm 828. that right now I don't even know where I'm going. As much money as we pay a month for these cell phones, for the bills, all this, and this

is happening to us, such a big company? Like, come on. Donald Trump seeks a 30-day delay in the enforcement of his New York civil fraud case. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce has the latest. An attorney representing the former president has asked New York Judge Arthur Engeron for a 30-day delay before his ruling can be enforced. Engeron fined Trump $350 million and temporarily bar. him from doing business in the Empire State. State Attorney Andrew Amor wrote the judge opposing

the request from Trump's legal team, however. Amor said that Friday's ruling left no room for further debate about the judgment. Trump's request stems from a disagreement over the case's judgment order, a document that signals when the penalties in the case are due. The request for a 30-day delay comes amid the following comments from New York Attorney General, Leticia James. If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets. And so at the end of the day, how he pays for the judgment is really not my business. At the end of the day, he was responsible and liable for $363 million plus $100 million in interest.

A Florida bill that would release transcripts of a 2006 grand jury's investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual assaults of underage girls is head. to the governor's desk. Daily Wire reporter Amanda Press de Jocamo has more. The bill has passed unanimously by Florida's legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis has already confirmed that he will sign it. That will take effect on July 1st, though an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Palm Beach Post may lead to the early release of those transcripts. In 2021, the Post sued the Palm Beach County State Attorney to unseal the grand jury proceedings in hopes of discovering why the jury, returned minimal charges. A circuit judge later ruled that the court didn't have the authority under state law to release the records. Then last year, a state appeals court disagreed, citing a state

law that says grand jury records can be made public for a, quote, furtherance of justice. The appeals court ordered the lower court to review, redact, and release the material, but that has yet to happen. This episode is brought to you by NetSuite. Download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netseweet.com slash morning wire. That's net suite.com slash morning wire. A missile attack on the Gulf of Aden sets a ship ablaze while Israel's port city of Ailet is attacked. Authorities are pointing the finger at Yemen-based Houthi rebels for both attacks, a group that's been behind several assaults on shipping vessels in the Red Sea since November.

The British military says today's attack saw two missiles fired, which caused the ship minor damage. they now say the ship is safe. According to ship tracking data, the vessel was identified as a Palau-flagged cargo ship. Meanwhile, sirens in a lit sounded early this morning. Online video showed would appear to be a missile interception in the sky above the city. Israel did not identify what the fire was nor where it came from. Experts say Houthi attacks have disrupted much of the world's trade as vessels seek longer routes. We could see every type of cargo that moves by sea affected.

and if we think about it more carefully, that is literally 90% of our world trade that is affected. So it's a huge globalized impact for all of us. The U.S. government charges a Japan-based Navy sailor with espionage. Chief Petty Officer Fire Controlman Bryce Pendicini is accused of providing classified material to a foreign government in at least seven instances. It's unclear which government Pendicini is accused of colluding with as the incident remains under investigation. CBS News has seized the files, computers, and records of investigative journalist Catherine Harwich.

Harwich was one of 20 news staff laid off by the network this month. George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley wrote in The Hill that he has spoken to several sources who say Harwich had run into internal roadblocks at CBS for her reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop. Producers at CBS tell Turley the timing of her firing is suspicious. The award-winning journalist was covering several stories critical of President Biden including corruption allegations. Harridge is also at the center of a First Amendment case and faces possible contempt charges

after refusing to reveal her sources in a story that goes back to her days of working at Fox News. Several journalists have issued statements in support of Harwich. And Yale University will again require standardized test scores for admissions starting next year. Daily Wire reporter Zach Jewel reports. Yale now believes that the test optional policy harmed the low-income students it was supposed to help. Critics of the SAT and ACT argue the tests feel inequality because

wealthy students can hire tutors to raise test scores. But now Yale joins Dartmouth and MIT in reinstating the tests for admissions. They believe that omitting test scores forces admissions officers to focus on extracurricular activities which wealthy students have in abundance. Or, as Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale's dean of admissions put it, quote, increased emphasis on these elements we found has the effect of advancing the advantaged. The statement went on, simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student's performance

in Yale courses in every model we have constructed. Still, 80% of four-year degree institutions will continue to be test optional. Those are your drive-home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com, and for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.