Thursday night (7/2) an electrical fire broke out at downtown Seattle's Fisher Plaza and disrupted service for a number of companies that use Fisher Communications' data and network operations, and co-location facilities.

In a statement, Fisher Communications said, the "incident in a garage-level electrical room disrupted power to Fisher Plaza East and knocked out the facility's backup generation system. The electrical room is where Fisher Plaza East receives its power from Seattle City Light."

Some of the companies affected include Microsoft' Bing Travel and Authorize.net, which provides credit-card services for more than 238,000 online merchants.

A female employee at a Virginia Apple store was shot and wounded Friday morning. Police say the suspect rang the bell at the back service entrance and shortly after the employee was shot.

Some media outlets report police have described this as an apparent robbery attempt, while others like CNET have quoted police saying it's "still too early to tell" what the shooter's motive may have been.

Either way, by the end of the day yesterday, the suspect was still on the loose.

Last Friday (6/26) a contract security guard working for United Protection Services at the Carrell Clinic in Dallas was arrested and accused of hacking into the hospital's computers. Specifically, the authorities believe Jesse William McGraw, 25, who goes by the hacker alias "GhostExodus", installed malware on the systems and planned to use the botnet to launch a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on July 4th.

In Simi Valley, California on Wednesday (7/1) an armed man walked into a dental office and opened fire, killing his estranged wife and critically wounding 3 of her co-workers.

The suspected gunman, Jaime Paredes of Simi Valley was apprehended at the scene by police. Paredes now stands accused of killing his wife, who was seeking a divorce. Paredes is also accused of three counts of attempted murder.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC), six banks in Illinois and 1 in Texas were shutdown by regulators on Thursday, bringing the total number of failed institutions this year to 52.

For more information about specific failed banks, visit the FDIC website.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is auditing the hiring practices of 652 businesses nationwide to determine whether or not they are in compliance with employment eligibility verification laws and regulations.

The businesses that have received ICE's Notices of Inspection (NOIs) were selected for inspection as a result of leads and information obtained through other investigative means, according to a statement from ICE.

According to local reports (here, here) from Nigeria, the CEO and Managing Director of Nomagbon Pharmacy, Mr. Osadolor Nomagbon, was kidnapped by gunmen in Benin City last Sunday (6/28). There is no information about whether or not a ransom has been demanded.

Human Resource Executive Online has an interview (link below) with the co-authors of "Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge and How to Stop It". In the piece Tom Tripp and Robert Bies answer questions about the definition of "workplace revenge", the role of the bad economy, and what HR personnel can do to address the problem.