Please note that before Trump put RFK in charge of infectious disease in America, there were zero measles deaths most years. One of the deaths this year in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was a 6-week-old infant, who was too young to be vaccinated and whose life depended upon herd immunity. Measles, one of the most easily spread diseases has an R-naught of 12 to 18. The U.S. has enjoyed elimination status for measles for more than two decades. In a November there will be a review of that status and most experts believe the U.S. will officially lose it. read more
Five weeks before Election Day, Democratic enthusiasm is reaching a fever pitch. With Republicans struggling to overcome President Donald Trump's low standing, Democrats are on the offensive in Republican strongholds like Texas and Florida, and even eyeing contests in deeper-red Kansas and Mississippi. Many Democratic leaders predict that the House majority is all but theirs, and that the Senate majority, almost unthinkable a year ago, is nearly in their grasp as well.
President Trump on Wednesday went after Fox News over hosting Democrats on its network, with the president saying "MAGA, and REAL Patriots will never like Fox!" read more
The US economy grew at a solid clip in the second quarter, driven by robust consumer spending and business investment related to the buildout of AI infrastructure. read more
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has long been charged with defending America's elections. With that agency gutted, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth instructed the Pentagon to do that job. read more
@#9
2026 Credit Card Debt Statistics
www.lendingtree.com
... Americans have a record level of credit card debt " $1.263 trillion, to be exact. ...
Credit card debt rose steadily until the Great Recession, then declined from $866 billion in Q4 2008 to $660 billion in Q1 2013 before resuming its upward trajectory.
When the pandemic took hold in 2020, credit card balances plunged again -- from $927 billion in Q4 2019 to $770 billion in Q1 2021.
Balances then rebounded sharply, beginning with a significant increase in Q4 2021 and reaching new highs in subsequent years. ...
@#40 ... Cruel and unusual indeed. ...
Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment
www.britannica.com
... What is the purpose of the Eighth Amendment?
How does the Eighth Amendment address cruel and unusual punishment?
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, leaving it to the courts to determine what is permissible, ensuring punishment is proportional to the crime. ...
@#30 ... "Where is this suppression I keep hearing about?" ...
Maybe also, things such as this ...
U.S. Appeals Court Strikes Down North Carolina's Voter ID Law (2016)
www.npr.org
...The appeals court noted that the North Carolina Legislature "requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices" -- then, data in hand, "enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans."[emphasis mine]
The changes to the voting process "target African Americans with almost surgical precision," the circuit court wrote, and "impose cures for problems that did not exist."
The appeals court suggested that the motivation was fundamentally political -- a Republican legislature attempting to secure its power by blocking votes from a population likely to vote for Democrats....
Related ...
Swiss glaciers lose more than 5% of ice after record heatwave
www.reuters.com
... Swiss glaciers are shrinking rapidly after suffering one of their worst years of ice loss during a record-breaking European heatwave.
Switzerland's glaciers lost more than 5% of their ice in 2026, a report by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS) and the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation of the Swiss Academy of Sciences showed on Thursday.
The findings underscore the accelerating pace of glacier retreat as extreme melt years become routine. Over the past five years, Swiss glaciers have shed almost a fifth of their ice, the report showed, threatening future water supplies and raising questions about the long-term survival of Europe's ice fields.
"Now we are in this new world, in this future, where glaciers are just melting away," Matthias Huss, director of GLAMOS, said.
A combination of a winter with too little snow and record temperatures in the summer led to what Huss called "enormous" melting this year.
'A REALLY WORRYING SITUATION'
"We are seeing extreme years almost every year now and this is really a worrying situation," Huss said. ...
Related ...
Melting Permafrost Is Poisoning Rivers With Metal Levels 70 Times Higher Than Normal
www.sciencealert.com
... Over the past decade, a network of usually pristine blue rivers and lakes that winds through Alaska's breathtaking Brooks Range mountains has been starting to look a little ... rusty.
Scientists first noticed the unusual orange plumes flowing into the water back in 2018. They began to investigate, collecting water samples from various sites so remote they can only be accessed by helicopter -- but at the time, they were only able to get a snapshot of what was going on.
"The more we flew around, we started noticing more and more orange rivers and streams," said ecologist Jon O'Donnell, of the US National Park Service. "There are certain sites that look almost like a milky orange juice." ...
The new study is published in AGU Advances.
The rust, Evinger and colleagues say, can be attributed to thawing Arctic permafrost. As water seeps through once-frozen soils, it encounters bedrock minerals that have been locked away for potentially thousands of years.
When these minerals are oxidized, they release metals " iron, aluminum, manganese, zinc, nickel, cadmium, and rare earth elements " that can then seep into waterways, hence the rivers' rusty appearances. ...
Related ...
RFK Jr. thinks AI will free us from the "tyranny" of medical facts, expertise
arstechnica.com
... At a Make America Healthy Again event Tuesday, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy opened a "fireside chat" with Vice President JD Vance on the topic of artificial intelligence. While MAHA generally coalesces around things like healthy lifestyles and mistrust of drugmakers, Kennedy quickly turned to extolling the potential of artificial intelligence, surprising Vance, who said he was expecting to discuss "weight loss and acid, not AI."
Kennedy boasted that the Trump administration is "making it easy for every American to use AI," which he claimed would free us from the "medical tyranny" of doctors and health experts. He suggested Americans should start using AI to get second opinions about medical recommendations, saying AI is "better informed than any doctor in the country." He also suggested that the technology would confirm his misinformation about vaccines and contrarian views on public health guidance. ...
Trump's campaign against noncitizen voting demonstrates it's rare and not enough to swing elections
apnews.com
... The Trump administration's campaign to root out noncitizen voting is demonstrating what critics of President Donald Trump's election conspiracy theories have long argued -- that it's incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of elections.
The administration has dedicated enormous resources to what election experts and administrators characterize as a comparatively small issue " noncitizens who, often due to misunderstanding the law, add their votes to the tens of millions of ballots cast during national elections.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced federal charges against 10 people in Minnesota alleged to have voted illegally over the last three elections, a period in which more than 8 million ballots were cast in the state.
"We're focused on providing accountability and restoring trust in our elections," Blanche said, lamenting that the media did not take seriously the charges for voter fraud his office has brought.
He said those added up to 90 for various types of election misconduct, including 50 against people who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens.
Even the 90 cases, which conflate voter fraud cases involving citizens of both political parties with those alleging noncitizen voting, are nominal in terms of the number of votes cast during presidential elections. It's nowhere near enough votes to swing any significant federal or even state election.
The U.S. had nearly 228 million registered voters for the 2024 presidential election, with more than 152 million ballots cast.
"They're incredibly low numbers no matter how you slice it," said Aaron Blacksberg of the Institute for Responsive Government, who was on a panel of election officials and experts on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., just before Blanche's announcement. ...
@#3
Another view ...
Russia makes nuclear weapons threat to NATO over Kaliningrad
www.newsnationnow.com
... NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance had responded to Russia's message by declaring: "We are a defensive alliance. And stop the nuclear threats. This is absolutely not called for and not helpful."
In its written response, seen by Reuters, NATO also said that none of its "exercises or activities pose a threat to the territory of the Russian Federation". ...
"We call upon the Russian Federation to end its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We urge the Russian Federation to refrain from increasingly reckless behaviour towards the Allies and to cease its irresponsible nuclear rhetoric," it said.
Asked if the risk of nuclear weapons being used against the Baltics was now real, Rutte told a defense conference in Brussels hosted by broadcaster Euronews: "No, it's not. Putin knows that he can never win (against) NATO, so I don't take this that seriously."
Risk of miscalculation
Nikolai Sokov, a Vienna-based nuclear analyst and former Russian diplomat, said it was becoming increasingly hard for Western countries to keep stepping up their support for Ukraine without tipping into direct confrontation with Moscow.
He said the Russian warning may indicate that hardliners are gaining influence in a debate over how to respond to Western actions that include arms supplies to Kyiv, new sanctions on Moscow, interceptions of Russian ships, frequent military exercises and intelligence flights near Kaliningrad. ...
Another view ...
Venezuelan man shot by ICE agent in Texas charged with assaulting an officer
www.theguardian.com
... The accusations against Garces Perez were reminiscent of previous claims made by immigration agents after high-profile shootings, in which officers have similarly accused drivers of weaponizing their vehicles. In a handful of cases, those allegations have been undermined or walked back after the release of body-worn camera footage, and have renewed scrutiny about the DHS's reliance on vehicular stops to execute arrests. ...
