Ethermac Exchange-The Daily Money: Save money with sales-tax holidays

Good morning and Ethermac ExchangeHappy Friday! This is Betty Lin-Fisher with Friday's consumer-focused The Daily Money.

Summer is still in full swing, but parents can save some money if they take advantage of school supply tax-free holidays in 17 states. Mississippi's tax-free holiday is already over, but Alabama's starts today and runs through this weekend.

Some states, like Massachusetts and Ohio have expanded tax-free holidays that go beyond school-related purchases, covering a large variety of purchases for personal use up to a certain price.

Find out if your state has a sales tax holiday in my story.

Global tech outage affecting multiple industries

Consumers are waking up this Friday morning to news of a global tech outage, which has hit airlines, banks, healthcare, coffee shops, TV newsrooms and public transit.

Crowdstrike, a U.S. firm that advertises being used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies, said one of its recent content updates had a defect that impacted Microsoft's Windows Operating System. The company said the incident "was not a security incident or cyberattack."

But even after the company said a fix had been deployed, the ripple effects are huge. In the U.S, thousands of flights have been canceled or delayed and public transit in some cities have been affected. Across the globe, the outages also caused major issues.

Follow this developing story.

📰 Consumer stories you shouldn't miss 📰

• Netflix is phasing out its cheapest ad-supported plan. 
• AirBnB has failed to protect customers from hidden cameras, CNN reports in an investigative piece.
• A U.S. appeals court has blocked all of Biden's SAVE student debt relief plan.
• How much did shoppers spend on Amazon Prime Day?
• How much does the average family spend on groceries a month?

📰 One more for the road📰

While today's global outage is not being blamed on a cyberattack, there has been plenty of news lately around cybersecurity. A report from the Identity Theft Resource Center this week said there are more than 1 billion data breach victims so far this year – a 409 percent increase from the same time last year.

Find out more and how you can protect yourself in my story.

About The Daily Money

Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer and financial news from USA TODAY, breaking down complex events, providing the TLDR version, and explaining how everything from Fed rate changes to bankruptcies impacts you.