The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Monday it expects to begin receiving files related to Jeffrey Epstein from the Department of Justice (DOJ) by the end of the week. read more
With temperatures in some parts of the London Underground recently exceeding levels deemed fit for cattle, climate change is well and truly transforming the experience of living in Britain's capital. The response has been a surge in demand for air-conditioning units in high-end homes.
When The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in 1975, no one could have dreamed that it would become the longest-running theatrical release film in history. read more
If at one time it was thought mosquitoes couldn't survive in desert climates, this city is a case study in how wrong that is.
"It felt really scary ... like being in the middle of a burning city during a night raid." Dr Arwyn Edwards is not describing urban warfare but a recent hot and foggy day on a Svalbard glacier, where record-breaking summer heat turned his workplace into a cascade of meltwater and falling rocks. read more
Related ...
Four dead as Spain hit by worst wildfires on record in 45C [113F] heatwave
www.independent.co.uk
... Four people have been killed in Spain as southern Europe is hit by its worst wildfires on record.
Authorities in Madrid have deployed nearly 3,000 troops to help firefighters tackle blazes that have devastated swathes of the country, as temperatures hit highs of 45C.
A severe 16-day-long heatwave has fuelled around 20 wildfires, burning more than 115,000 hectares in the regions of Galicia and Castile and Leon over the past week. ...
In neighbouring Portugal, wildfires have burned about 216,200 hectares so far this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) - more than four times the 2006-2024 average for this period - and two people have died.
Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades, with Spain and Portugal among the hardest-hit countries. ...
Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires. ...
Placing tariffs on Brazil is odd because the US had a trade surplus with Brazil. I say "had" because I do not know if there will be a surplus going forward.
The numbers that define the US-Brazil trade partnership (July 2025)
www.atlanticcouncil.org
... Looking at US trade in goods data, the United States has a trade surplus with Brazil. But even more importantly, Brazil has the highest US trade surplus among emerging economies, as evidenced by the 2024 trade data among Group of Twenty (G20) economies. ...
From the sub-summary ...
... As Trump's approval rating slips, his signature tariffs and tax bill face more opposition than support among the public. ...
I just paid $22.99 for a canister of coffee that used to cost me $9.99 ($7.99 on sale).
US Roasters Shun Coffee From Brazil After 50% Tariffs Kick In
finance.yahoo.com
... American coffee buyers are shunning fresh deals with top grower Brazil after President Donald Trump's 50% tariff took effect this month.
Companies are avoiding new contracts and looking for wiggle room in existing ones to avoid having to pay the higher levies, according to a dozen brokers, roasters and exporters contacted by Bloomberg. Some US buyers are asking for extended shipping timelines in the hopes that tariffs may be eased later, according to Brazil's exporter group Cecaf.
Deals between the US and Brazil have "totally stalled," said coffee broker Thiago Cazarini. "No one's really buying anything."
About a third of America's unroasted coffee typically comes from Brazil, a country Trump has been immersed in a trade conflict with, in part due to what he calls the "politically motivated persecution" of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. A political ally of Trump's, Bolsonaro faces trial for an attempted coup against the government of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a 2022 election.
Trump first announced 10% tariffs on Brazil and other countries in April, before imposing 50% levies on the South American agricultural power that kicked in on Aug. 6. ...
The GOP spent millions supporting mail ballots. Now Trump's attacking them again.
www.politico.com
... Republicans poured tens of millions of dollars last year into convincing their voters that casting ballots by mail was safe after Trump spent years bashing the practice and baselessly insisting it was rife with fraud. And it worked, with GOP voters closing or even reversing the mail voting gap with Democrats in several states.
But now Trump is attacking mail voting again as he ratchets up his push to protect Republicans' House majority in the midterms, scrambling a strategy Republicans effectively used to bank millions of votes in 2024. ...
Republicans made significant strides in 2024 toward closing what had been a Democratic advantage in mail voting four years prior, even as the overall share of voters casting ballots by mail fell 13 percentage points from 2020, when the pandemic changed voting habits.
In North Carolina, Republicans narrowly outpaced Democrats in mail ballots cast in 2024, a reversal from four years prior, when Democrats banked a more than 250,000-voter advantage among mail ballots. (Trump won the state both times.) Republicans similarly returned to their advantage among mail-in votes in Arizona, which has allowed any voter to request a mail ballot since the early 1990s.
And in Pennsylvania, state data shows GOP voters accounted for 32 percent of mail ballots in 2024, when Trump won the state, up from 25 percent in 2020, when he narrowly lost to Joe Biden. ...
Another view ...
Elon Musk's "thermonuclear" Media Matters lawsuit may be fizzling out
arstechnica.com
... In her opinion granting MMFA's preliminary injunction, US District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan -- a Joe Biden appointee -- agreed that the FTC's probe was likely to be ruled as a retaliatory violation of the First Amendment. ...
FTC staff social posts may be evidence of retaliation ...
A huge part of the problem for the FTC was social media comments posted before some senior FTC staffers were appointed by Ferguson. Those posts appeared to show the FTC growing increasingly partisan, perhaps pointedly hiring staffers who they knew would help take down groups like MMFA.
As examples, Sooknanan pointed to Joe Simonson, the FTC's director of public affairs, who had posted that MMFA "employed a number of stupid and resentful Democrats who went to like American University and didn't have the emotional stability to work as an assistant press aide for a House member."
And Jon Schwepp, Ferguson's senior policy advisor, had claimed that Media Matters -- which he branded as the "scum of the earth" -- "wants to weaponize powerful institutions to censor conservatives."
And finally, Jake Denton, the FTC's chief technology officer, had alleged that MMFA is "an organization devoted to pressuring companies into silencing conservative voices." ...
Also look at the many money transfers involving Mr Epstein's account worth over a billion dollars.
In Epstein Case, Follow the Money, Democratic Senator Says
www.nytimes.com
... Senator Ron Wyden has found that four banks waited until Mr. Epstein's arrest on federal charges to flag $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions. Mr. Wyden wants the documents made public. ...
In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions -- including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator's office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.
Large money transfers to individuals, foreign countries or obscure companies are the kind of things banks are supposed to be examining as potentially suspicious. Some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in a report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subject to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions red-flagged were for as much as $100 million. ...
Here's what I see ...
President Trump Job Approval
www.realclearpolling.com
...
RCP Average 7/16 - 8/14
Approve: 45.5
Disapprove: 51.5
Spread: -6.0
...
In specific areas ...
President Trump Approval - Economy
www.realclearpolling.com
...
RCP Average 7/6 - 8/13
Approve: 42.8
Disapprove: 54.4
Spread: -11.6
...
President Trump Job Approval - Foreign Policy
www.realclearpolling.com
...
RCP Average 7/6 - 8/3
Approve: 43.6
Disapprove: 53.9
Spread: -9.3
...
President Trump Job Approval - Immigration
www.realclearpolling.com
...
RCP Average 7/6 - 8/11
Approve: 46.2
Disapprove: 51.2
Spread: -5.0
...
President Trump Job Approval - Inflation
www.realclearpolling.com
...
RCP Average 5/30 - 8/11
Approve: 38.6
Disapprove: 59.1
Spread: -20.5
...
I've entered an 80's playlist this evening, so nothing too mellow ...
But the last song from the 70's playlist I was listening to was...
Barclay James Harvest - Child Of The Universe (1974)
www.youtube.com
Kind of mellow, but with a message.
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
I'm a child of South Africa
I'm a child of Vietnam
I'm a child of Northern Ireland
I'm a small boy with blood on his hands
Yes I'm a child of the universe
Yes I'm a child of the universe
You can see me on the TV every night
Always there to join in someone else's fight
I didn't ask to be born, and I don't ask to die
I'm an endless scream, a gene machine
That cannot reason why
Yes I'm a child of the universe
Yes I'm a child of the universe
You can see me on the TV every day
I'm the child next door three thousand miles away
...
Quite the tune back in the day ...
@#3
While I may not necessarily agree with your comment, I still have a question about the contents of the classified files that Pres Trump took back to Mar-A-Lago when he won back the Oval Office.
Trump returns seized classified documents to Mar-a-Lago aboard Air Force One (March 2025)
www.upi.com
... President Donald Trump on Friday took back to Florida boxes of documents that the FBI had seized from Mar-a-Lago after executing a court-ordered search warrant in August 2022.
About 15 boxes were put onto Air Force One and sent to Palm Beach where the president is spending the weekend at his estate. ...
Why might he have done that?
More from the article ...