It’s been a long time coming. KINGDOM HEARTS arrives in Fortnite later this week!

Video shows out-of-control helicopter repeatedly crash into Utah airport taxiway during lesson

The Atrium Health-State Health Plan agreement places Alleghany Memorial Hospital in Sparta, Hugh Chatham Hospital in Elkin and Wilkes Medical Center in North Wilkesboro into Tier 2 access provider status.

Spain’s solar sector installed 10,105 MW of new capacity in 2025, according to the annual report of Spanish PV association UNEF. Solar accounted for nearly 23% of the country’s electricity mix, making it Spain’s leading power-generation technology. Ground-mounted installations accounted for 8,966 MW of the new capacity, up 31% from 2024. The self-consumption segment added 1,139 MW, down 4% year on year. By the end of 2025, Spain’s cumulative PV capacity stood at 46,286 MW for ground-mounted systems and 9,276 MW for self-consumption, according to the report. UNEF said strong daytime solar generation is lowering wholesale electricity prices while also reducing the revenue earned by PV assets. The average price captured by solar fell from €42.28 ($48.82)/MWh in 2024 to €36.39/MWh in 2025 and €29.68/MWh in the first half of 2026. The decline coincided with a rise in the number of zero- and negative-price periods. Spain recorded 797 hours with electricity prices at or below €0/MWh during periods of significant PV generation in 2025. The country had already matched that figure by July 7, 2026, and was approaching 900 hours by early September. UNEF identified the electrification of end uses as one of the main challenges in the next phase of the energy transition. Spain has 71.5 GW of demand connection capacity that has either been granted or included in grid planning through 2030, alongside a further 24 GW of pending requests. Data centers, industrial facilities, hydrogen production, storage and electric mobility account for a significant share of the expected demand. Storage is also becoming increasingly important. Behind-the-meter storage installations rose 65% in 2025 to 540 MWh, bringing cumulative capacity installed since 2022 to 2,745 MWh. Spain also has 261 MW of utility-scale storage in operation, comprising 241 MW of hybrid systems and 20 MW of standalone projects. A further 33,031 MW has secured permits, while 14,607 MW remains in the permitting process. Solar contributed €9.84 billion to Spain’s gross domestic product in 2025, equivalent to about 0.5% of national GDP, while the sector’s total economic impact reached €14.12 billion. The industry supported 134,708 jobs and generated €3.21 billion in exports. Investment in research, development and innovation reached €473 million. UNEF put the sector’s innovation intensity at 3.6%, more than twice the 1.6% average for Spanish industry. The association said the next stage of solar development will require the electricity system to accommodate higher volumes of renewable generation and storage. Its proposals include introducing more flexible grid-access and connection permits, streamlining administrative procedures, facilitating the hybridization of existing plants and accelerating demand electrification. UNEF also called for changes to the wholesale price-setting mechanism to reflect growing renewable penetration, including measures aimed at limiting the frequency of zero-price periods. The post Spain added 10.1 GW of solar in 2025 appeared first on pv magazine Global.

Overall coffee drinking in the United States held steady this summer, while specialty coffee consumption and drinking outside the home continued to gain ground, according to the National Coffee Association‘s...

NBC boosts security at ‘Today’ studio after string of incidents

WWE star Liv Morgan lost the Women’s World Title to Stephanie Vaquer at the company’s live event on September 12th at the Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile. The match featured Becky Lynch, known as “The Man,” serving as the special guest referee. During the match, Morgan appeared to have defeated Vaquer after hitting her finisher, […]

- by New Deal democratAn issue came up on another site about whether my statement that “coincident indicators … [are] almost all positive, driven by a sharp increase in consumer spending” is correct, if that increased consumer spending is driven by increased leverage.Rather than respond with a brief comment elsewhere, let me take an extended look at the data here.For starters, let me show you the metric, of the weekly change in YoY retail spending as reported by Redbook:Nominally consumer spending was higher by about 4%-6% in 2024 and the first half of 2025. Since then it has risen as high as 11% YoY, and as of this morning was reported to be 8.5% higher YoY.I have written for almost two decades that real retail sales are a short leading indicator for employment, which is one of the primary determinants used to define if the economy is in a recession or not. But what if an important sector of the economy, like the stock market, is driven by leverage or speculation? Unfortunately we don’t have information about consumer spending in 1929, which was the ultimate example of a bursting bubble driving a downturn. All we know is that it was a unique situation where the economy actually entered a recession first, in June, while the stock market famously did not peak until September.But we do have two recent examples of bursting bubbles being associated with recessions: the dotcom bust of 2000-02, and the housing bubble crash of 2006-10. So let’s take a look at consumer spending, employment, and the stock market for both of those.First of all, as per my statement above, real consumer spending as measured by real retail sales (blue) turned neutral for a year before both downturns, while employment (red) continued to rise, peaking - almost by definition - in the month the recessions began:On a YoY% basis, the leading nature of consumer spending compared with employment is even clearer, with spending turning negative several months before employment did (and also rebounding months ahead of the employment rebound as well):But since the issue has come up as to the wealth effect from stock market leverage, let’s look at that as well. Unfortunately FRED doesn’t have the right to post the S&P data back further than 10 years, it does have NASDAQ data all the way back to the 1970s. So first, here are real retail spending compared with the absolute values of the NASDAQ composite (violet):In 2000 the NASDAQ continued to rise for several months after consumer spending plateaued, and in 2007 it rose for an entire year after the real spending turned flat.Again, the YoY% comparison shows even better that real retail spending began to decelerate sharply and even turn down before the stock market did:So, what about the present situation? Over the past 5 years, in absolute terms there isn’t such a neat fit:But the situation was somewhat unique, in that there was a huge stimulus in 2021, leading consumers to buy lots of stuff; and having done so, they didn’t need to do it again in 2022 or 2023. But employment had been so depressed that it took several years to catch up.The YoY% comparison again is a little better. We can see that YoY retail sales declined, leading a gradual deceleration in hiring. And real retail sales bottomed at the end of last year, several months before the YoY bottom in employment:In absolute terms, the stock market led the way higher in 2023 before sales picked up substantially in 2024:The same is the case in the YoY comparison, suggesting that indeed it has been the wealth effect from stock market gains that have led to the recent increase in real spending:But as of the last report for July, real consumer spending was higher by 1.5% YoY, consistent with the levels of an ongoing expansion as shown in the graphs for 1998-2010. And the Redbook graph I showed above indicates that this level continues to be the case for August and so far this month as well.Finally, a point I almost always make in the context of the monthly personal income and spending report is that consumers tend to get further out over their skis, in the form of a decrease in the personal saving rate (i.e., they save less of their paychecks) as expansions go on. They typically pull in their horns (this is *exactly* Keynes’s paradox of thrift) a few months before the onset of the recession:The exceptions were the sudden 1973-4 oil embargo, and COVID, which are basically self-explanatory. The point is that increasing leverage as expansions go on and consumers get more complacent is not unusual at all.So to conclude: yes, the strong consumer spending that we have been seeing right up until the present is not just a sign that on a coincident basis the economy has been expanding, but a short leading indicator suggesting that - barring a particularly egregious geopolitical act of lunacy by the current Administration - the economy will continue to expand for at least a few more months.

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OpenAI contractors are getting paid more than $50 an hour to rate ChatGPT's responses to your queries, 404Media reports. Here's how to opt out. OpenAI may be sending entire chat logs of ChatGPT conversations to contractors to help improve its models' responses. According to documents seen by 404Media, OpenAI uses contractor feedback extensively to help train its models, and logs obtained make it clear that most users aren't aware that …

Hospital could have prevented some of nurse's baby killings, judge says

Discord isn’t just another chatting app, it’s a focal point of communication for numerous communities, particularly those with a gaming-oriented slant. It’s the place many of us go to talk with our friends, meet new ones, and debate power levels. That’s why it’s so infuriating, then, when Discord suddenly goes down, and it’s even more infuriating when nobody can seem to figure out why it’s happening.

Yellowstone staff find 20,000 pieces of trash while cleaning hydrothermal areas

There’s something almost poetic about a returned item. It gets ordered online, shipped across the country, opened with excitement, and then, for any number of reasons—wrong size, duplicate gift, a change of heart—it goes back. Most people never think about what happens next. But Jordan Allen and Brock Kowalchuk did. They saw a mountain of perfectly good products being treated like trash, and they built BuyWander to rescue it. The company, founded in 2023, is an auction-based online marketplace for returned and overstocked retail goods from giants like Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Home Depot. And it just got a major vote of confidence: a $21 million Series A funding round led by Madrona Venture Group and Inspired Capital, bringing total funding to $28 million. For Allen and Kowalchuk, this is validation of a belief that has driven them from day one: that so-called “misfit inventory” deserves better than a landfill. They call it the intersection of “the weird meets the wonderful,” and they’re betting that shoppers will fall in love with it too. At a time when household budgets are tight, BuyWander offers an escape hatch—a place where bidding starts at $1 and ordinary people can walk away with extraordinary deals. The funding announcement is about more than money. It’s also a story about roots, growth, and the hard choice to leave a place you love. BuyWander started in Spokane, Washington, where Allen and Kowalchuk were living when the idea took shape. Spokane was the perfect testing ground: small enough to get quick feedback, close enough to the founders’ hearts to feel personal. But as the company scaled, they realized they needed something bigger. In August, BuyWander officially moved its headquarters to the Seattle area, setting up shop in Kent, Washington, where 45 employees now work. The move wasn’t an insult to Spokane—it was a love letter to the company’s future. Kowalchuk put it plainly: “Spokane was a wonderful place to start the company… But getting to the size where we are today and building out that leadership team really requires a little bit more talent density that Seattle can provide with deep roots in retail and deep roots in tech.” The region has already rewarded that faith. BuyWander started with a cramped local facility to test demand, then upgraded to a massive 52,000-square-foot warehouse capable of processing three to five times more volume. Across eight fulfillment locations nationwide, the workforce has grown to 325 people, most of them in hands-on roles like intake, stocking, and customer service. It’s a long way from two founders with a laptop and a hunch. For shoppers, BuyWander feels less like a typical online store and more like a treasure hunt that never ends. Every item starts at $1, and auctions run for exactly seven days. There are no shipping costs, because buyers pick up their winnings directly from local fulfillment centers. It’s a model that saves money for customers while eliminating the logistical headache of shipping returned goods back and forth across the country. And the inventory is gloriously unpredictable. In any given week, you might find commercial ice cream machines, log splitters, electronic cow milkers, hair dryers, air fryers, or a 12-foot skeleton that arrived just after Halloween. Allen loves the unpredictability. “It is probably one of the best product discovery platforms out there,” he says, predicting the company will eventually sell a bit of everything listed on the internet. The average discount is 75% off retail, which means shoppers are getting real value, not just novelty. In the past month alone, BuyWander sold nearly 500,000 unique items across its eight warehouse locations. The platform now counts 50,000 active and winning customers who have saved a cumulative $200 million—roughly $4,000 per person. And perhaps most striking, the growth has been almost entirely organic. Nine out of ten shoppers hear about BuyWander through word of mouth. People don’t just use the service; they tell their friends, their neighbors, their coworkers. They become evangelists for the strange joy of rescuing a great product at an even better price. Behind the curtain, technology is doing something remarkable. Historically, resale platforms struggled with a simple problem: manually listing thousands of unique items is slow, expensive, and riddled with errors. Poor photos and bad descriptions kept inventory moving too slowly and hurt the customer experience. BuyWander has turned to artificial intelligence to smash that bottleneck. Automated tools now identify returned products, pull in retail valuations, and generate detailed listings with a single click. AI optimizes auction scheduling, appointment bookings, and even the timing of when items go live. Allen describes the operation as a strange mashup of old-world warehouse grit and futuristic automation. “It feels like World War II and Star Trek at the same time and we’re merging these two worlds together,” he says. That merger is paying off. The company is growing at 400% year-over-year, a blistering pace that would be impossible without the technology layer. But the AI isn’t replacing the human touch—it’s amplifying it. Real people still inspect, stock, and hand off the items. Real people answer questions and help customers navigate the auctions. The technology simply removes the boring, repetitive parts, freeing the team to focus on the stuff that makes BuyWander feel alive. There’s a deeper mission here, too, and it has nothing to do with profit margins. Retail returns are a massive environmental and economic problem. In the United States alone, returns total roughly $850 billion every year, driven by online shopping return rates that hover near 20%. For retailers, processing a single return can eat up anywhere from 20% to 65% of the item’s original price once shipping, inspection, and restocking are factored in. Faced with those numbers, many brands simply give up. They throw returned goods away, not because the products are broken, but because their systems aren’t built to handle them locally. Allen finds this almost criminal. He points to a simple example: a Seahawks jersey gets returned by mail to a distribution center in Kentucky, then loaded onto a truck and shipped to Miami, where it might sit unsold for months. “The stars really align when the stuff can be sold locally where the demand already was to begin with,” he says. BuyWander’s model keeps those goods in their own communities. Instead of crisscrossing the country, a returned tool or television stays in the metro area where it was first purchased, gets listed on the platform, and finds a new home within a few miles of its original destination. It’s better for the planet, better for the retailer, and better for the buyer. Roughly 80% of the returned goods BuyWander receives arrive in “appears new” condition, with only minor packaging damage. That means the waste isn’t just unnecessary—it’s avoidable. Looking ahead, BuyWander has no intention of slowing down. The new funding will fuel technology investments and accelerate a nationwide market expansion, following recent warehouse launches in Denver and Chicago. But this isn’t just about adding locations; it’s about getting closer to customers. In the Puget Sound region, Allen notes that traffic and geography often create barriers between communities, so the company plans to open four to five warehouses across the greater Seattle area over the next few years. The goal is simple: make pickup so convenient that shopping on BuyWander feels effortless. The customer base is already a healthy mix—about 80% are everyday consumers using the platform for normal household shopping, while the remaining 20% are local resellers who have built small businesses around the steady stream of discounted goods. It’s a community that Allen and Kowalchuk have nurtured with care, and they believe they’re just scratching the surface. “This is blue ocean right now,” Allen says. “Nobody’s really built an incredibly strong consumer brand in this retail return space.” With $28 million in the bank, a team of 325 people, and a growing network of warehouses, BuyWander is positioned to become that brand. But at its heart, the company remains what it was on day one: a second chance for products, a way to save money for families, and a small but meaningful answer to the enormous problem of waste. For the shoppers who refresh their screens at midnight to catch a new auction, it’s not just about the deal. It’s about the delight of finding something wonderful in the strangest of places.

At least 13 Triad plant closings announced since the beginning of 2025 accounted for more than 1,460 lost jobs.

Meet the wealthiest person in your state, according to Forbes

International food-standard experts will discuss nutrient reference values and proposed standards for foods made for older infants and young children at a November Codex meeting, with USDA seeking public input on U.S. positions beforehand. BearFotos/Shutterstock Parents who buy packaged foods for babies and toddlers may not spend much time thinking about international food standards, but a meeting scheduled for this fall will tackle questions involving nutrients, ingredients and standards for foods intended for some of the youngest consumers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Codex Office has scheduled a virtual public meeting for October 5, 2026, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. The meeting will give consumers, industry representatives and other interested parties an opportunity to hear about and comment on proposed U.S. positions ahead of an international nutrition standards meeting in Germany. According to a Federal Register notice, the public meeting will be held by video teleconference only. International Food Standards for Young Children Are on the Agenda The October meeting is preparation for the 45th Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, known as CCNFSDU45. That international meeting is scheduled for November 2–6, 2026, in Nuremberg, Germany. The committee is part of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the international food standards program established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Codex develops standards, guidelines and codes of practice designed to protect consumer health and promote fair practices in international food trade. The November meeting’s agenda includes several subjects that could be particularly interesting to parents and caregivers. One is work on nutrient reference values for children ages 6 to 36 months. Delegates will also discuss a draft standard for foods for older infants and young children. Other agenda items include the technological justification for several food additives, methods used to analyze foods covered by the committee’s standards and proposals for new work and emerging nutrition issues. Why Shoppers May Want to Pay Attention The October 5 meeting does not mean U.S. baby-food labels or ingredient requirements are about to change. Codex standards are international standards rather than automatic changes to U.S. law. However, they can provide reference points for governments and play an important role in international food trade and nutrition policy. The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses has previously developed or worked on standards covering infant formula, canned baby food, processed cereal-based foods for infants and young children, foods for special medical purposes and other specialized dietary products. That makes the committee’s work relevant well beyond an international meeting room. Decisions made through the Codex process can help shape the global standards manufacturers, regulators and countries consider when producing and trading specialized foods. For U.S. shoppers, however, current FDA and USDA requirements remain the rules that govern products sold domestically unless U.S. regulators separately change those requirements. The Public Can Comment Before the U.S. Delegation Heads to Germany The USDA meeting gives interested members of the public a chance to hear how the United States is approaching the November discussions before the international session takes place. Dr. Douglas Balentine, the U.S. delegate to CCNFSDU45, is accepting written comments electronically. USDA says comments should specify that they relate to activities of the 45th Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. During the October 5 virtual meeting, officials will describe agenda items and draft U.S. positions, and participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and offer comments. People interested in attending can register through the link provided in the Federal Register notice. Supporting documents and the international meeting agenda are also available through the Codex Alimentarius CCNFSDU45 meeting page. The international committee is hosted by Germany, and the United States participates as a Codex member country. What Parents Should Know Right Now Parents shouldn’t interpret the October meeting as a warning that foods currently sitting in their pantry are unsafe or nutritionally inadequate. There is no recall or immediate consumer safety alert associated with this notice. Instead, this is part of the longer international process used to develop food and nutrition standards. Parents choosing foods for infants and young children should continue following current U.S. nutrition and food-safety guidance and consult a pediatrician or other healthcare professional when they have questions about a child’s specific nutritional needs. For people interested in how standards for infant and young-child foods are developed, however, the October 5 meeting offers an unusual opportunity to see—and participate in—the process before the U.S. delegation attends the international session in November. What to Read Next USDA Is Making It Easier for Schools to Understand Rules for Buying Local Food USDA Awards $20 Million in Farm to School Grants and Opens Applications for $20 Million in School Kitchen Equipment Funding USDA Extends Comment Deadline on Plan to Cut Federal Share of SNAP Administrative Costs The post USDA Seeks Public Input on International Nutrition Standards for Foods Made for Infants and Young Children appeared first on Grocery Coupon Guide.

At a Walmart Supercenter in North Bergen, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Victor Lopez, 21, tapped the screen of his work-issued smartphone. Under a field labeled “Enter new price,” he punched in $10 for a bottle of barbeque sauce. If it had worked, Lopez, a team leader, would have almost tripled the price of the item with a click of a button. But it didn’t, and that’s not due to some human or technical error. It was the whole point of the demonstration: to show that store associates are not able to use electronic shelf labels (ESLs) to raise prices arbitrarily. “We cannot take prices up in the store,” Kyle Boyd, store manager of the supercenter, where about 90% of tags have been replaced with ESLs, told Retail Brew during a tour of the facility last month. “We can only take prices down in the store.” The willingness to promote some pricing practices—as well as touting what it is characterizing as a technical stopgap in place to prevent price hikes at the store level—comes as Walmart faces political pushback that could determine the future of electronic shelf labels. With lawmakers increasingly tying the technology to controversial pricing practices, the retail giant is making the case that ESLs won’t fundamentally change how prices are set. Using or abusing: In July, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the Fair Price Protection Act into law to protect consumers from “discriminatory surveillance pricing”—which it defines as using personal data to set prices t —and placing a one-year moratorium on new ESLs while the state studies the effects of the tech. Critics of the legislation argue that digital price tags are simply a tool for saving time and cutting costs, while supporters of the law argue they make it easier for retailers to manipulate and raise prices. This debate is now playing out on a national level. Maryland passed a similar law earlier this year, and legislation is pending in several other states. A recent report from the Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union also claimed that Instacart’s AI pricing tool offers individualized prices on the same items. In response, companies and industry groups are eager to distance ESLs from unpopular pricing practices like surveillance pricing, dynamic pricing, and other labels such as surge pricing, which conjure images of skyrocketing airline or concert tickets. “Electronic shelf labels are not tools for surge pricing, but rather tools for efficiency and affordability,” Macy Lemon, vice president of state government affairs at the National Grocers Association, said in a statement urging Governor Sherrill to make changes to the New Jersey law before it was signed due to concerns it would make it harder for stores to offer affordable groceries to consumers. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ademola Oyefeso, international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, told Retail Brew it’s not a matter of if, but when, companies start using the technology to engage in dynamic pricing. “A retailer may not be doing it right now, but they are laying the groundwork for it,” he said. Now the union wants a full ban on ESLs, which it sees as a “tool for price-gouging and job loss,” Oyefeso said. He pointed to the recent example of Norway, where a number of grocery chains engaged in rapid repricing on a daily basis after installing digital tags. For an industry that seemed ready for widespread adoption, the legislative pushback could have serious implications for the future of the technology. Walmart committed to rolling out ESLs across its entire US footprint of 2,300 locations by the end of the year. Kroger added the tech to a number of stores across the country, and Whole Foods is testing out digital tags at nearly 50 stores. The struggle for retailers now is convincing consumers and lawmakers that digital labels won’t open the door to problematic pricing practices. Will they or won’t they? “DSLs operate on a closed system and do not interact with shoppers or collect any information about them,” Robyn Babbitt, director of corporate communications at Walmart, said in an email to Retail Brew. “There is nothing like a camera or microphone in them; they just display prices” The legislation is an “overreaction,” she added. When there is an increase to the base price of a product, as opposed to a rollback or promotion, it’s happening at the corporate level and usually outside of regular shopping hours—not spontaneously while customers are walking around the store, Babbitt said. “They’re centrally controlled through our pricing team,” she said during the tour of the supercenter in North Bergen, adding that human beings remain in control of all pricing actions. While working closely with retailers on their merchandising and promotional strategies, Asa Farquhar, strategic principal of price and promotion at RELEX, a retail planning platform, said he is not see this technology being used for dynamic pricing among his retail clients. Instead, he sees them being used to reduce errors and optimize price adjustments that were happening anyway. “I have never seen them talking about how we can use these tools to get a leg up on customers,” he said. Theoretically, however, the technology could make it easier for retailers to price more dynamically, Farquhar explained, and for that to result in “any number of negative pricing scenarios.” For Farquhar, though, this is not a guarantee of bad practices. “If a price can be changed faster, easier, and with less expense, I think it’s fair to say that could lead to retailers being willing to change prices more often,” he said. “But I think it’s a stretch to say just because a price could change more often or is executed more operationally efficiently that we would see any kind of nefarious strategies around that.” This report was originally published by Retail Brew. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Government Solution Service (GSS) of Japan's Digital Agency was compromised by a vulnerability in a VPN device, resulting in unauthorized access to the shared government platform through an exploit of a vulnerability in the VPN device. In this incident, 246,000 records containing information regarding employees, public officials, contractors, and other individuals connected to organizations using the service may have been exposed. Upon discovering unusually large-scale access to files on a server through an account belonging to a maintenance and operations staff member on June 25, the agency first detected the breach. Following an investigation, the agency determined that the account activity was linked to an unauthorized access to a network-connected VPN device. By July 9, the agency determined that an external party had accessed the system by exploiting a vulnerability in the VPN equipment. Immediately after the incident, the maintenance account was suspended, and communication between the equipment and external networks was restricted to prevent further access. The investigation, conducted with the assistance of an external security company, revealed that some files that contained personal information could have been transferred outside the system. The VPN product used and the specific vulnerability that was exploited have not been disclosed by the agency. Through shared IT infrastructure, 23 Japanese ministries and government agencies are served by the affected GSS environment, which can have a greater impact on the incident. The exposed information consists of approximately 236,000 names, 231,000 e-mail addresses, 94,000 telephone numbers, and 1,000 physical addresses. The records relate to personnel and officials who work with GSS user organizations, as well as businesses and individuals who support those organizations. Data containing information belonging to the general public was not included in the affected data, according to the agency. Additionally, the compromised dataset is lacking My Number identification numbers, bank account information, or pension number information. Despite the fact that no confirmed cases of misuse have been identified, the exposed contact information could still be used for impersonation, phishing, or other forms of social engineering. VPN exposures were categorized as medium severity and were not zero-day vulnerabilities; however, the agency has failed to provide details regarding when the vulnerability was fixed or why the device was still exposed at the time of the intrusion. Known VPN Flaw Left UnpatchedDue to the fact that the Digital Agency was already aware of a VPN flaw when the breach occurred, but had not applied the required patch, the incident raises concerns about vulnerability management. According to the agency, the vulnerability has a medium severity and has been confirmed as not a zero-day, indicating that attackers exploited a known vulnerability rather than a newly discovered vulnerability. The information accessed is approximately 246,000 records. Over 189,000 of these people are government employees, public officials, or other personnel working for GSS-related organizations, while approximately 57,000 are private companies and individuals involved in government-related activities. A total of 236,000 names, 231,000 emails, 94,000 telephone numbers, and 1,000 physical addresses were included in the data. In addition, duplicate entries may be present in the data. More sensitive identifiers are not included in the dataset, such as My Number information, bank account details, and pension information.Investigation Finds No Confirmed MisuseThe Digital Agency has not received any confirmations of misuse of the exposed information, however, the combination of names and contact information could facilitate targeted phishing or impersonation attempts against affected employees. Messages or phone calls from individuals pretending to represent the government have been warned by the agency, and official personnel will not contact affected parties via email or telephone for passwords or payment information. Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission was made aware of this incident on July 15. During the investigation, the agency determined that potentially affected information was likely to be identified and the individuals and organizations involved required a considerable amount of time, which contributed to the delay in public disclosure. Digital Agency officials indicated the impact was limited to the affected GSS environment with no evidence of other government systems being compromised or disrupted. As part of its effort to strengthen vulnerability management and review how external connections to the system are handled, the agency is also expected to provide direct notifications to the affected individuals. To prevent unauthorized access to sensitive government information and limit unauthorized access, VPN patches should be implemented on time, strict access controls should be implemented, continuous monitoring should occur, and rapid isolation should be instituted.