Links

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-fbi-agent-trump-got-elected-thanks-russia-090006587.html
Aug. 1, 2018
President Trump can thank Vladimir Putin for his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, a former special agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation told the Yahoo News podcast “Bots & Ballots.”
Asked point-blank if Russian hacking and disinformation helped elect Trump to the presidency, Clint Watts, who tracked the online activities of extremist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group for the FBI in the run-up to the 2016 election, was resolute.
“Yes. I think just alone the hacking, particularly of the DNC and the time to release by WikiLeaks and DCLeaks and others of hacked materials offset the media narrative,” Watts, who has been an outspoken critic of the current president, told “Bots & Ballots” host Grant Burningham. “If you go back to the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape of Donald Trump, it was immediately followed by the release, within an hour I believe, of hacked emails to try and distract from that narrative, and to essentially inundate that media space with other coverage.”
Watts said the FBI took note of Russia’s disinformation campaign on social media even earlier, in 2014.
“By the time 2016 came around, it was very clear that they had four campaign messages that they wanted to push. The first one was very anti-Hillary Clinton, and that was from the beginning. The second one was very pro-Trump,” Watts said. “The third one was when the hacking kicked in, which was that Bernie Sanders got a raw deal from the DNC, and you can see that in these hacked emails. That’s really when we started to see that hacking was starting to power influence. And the last one, which was very minor, was that you still need to show up for Jill Stein. So, the equation was quite clear, it was how do we elevate Trump to the top spot and sort of suppress Clinton turnout and people wanting to support her.”
“I think Russia has won. If you look at what their goals were — degrading or defeating NATO, breaking up the European Union, finding an ally in counterterrorism for their Syria policy, and making gains against Ukraine — they’ve gotten all of those,” Watts said, adding. “I can think of no intelligence operation and influence operation that’s been more successful in world history in such a short period of time.”


https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/trump-administration-aclu-deported-parents/index.html
Aug. 3, 2018
A federal judge called the Trump administration's slowness to track down migrant parents it had separated from their children and then deported "unacceptable," saying the responsibility is "100%" on the government.
The stern admonishment from District Judge Dana Sabraw came a day after the administration argued that immigrant advocacy groups -- not the government -- should be responsible for tracking down the more than 500 parents it had separated from their children at the border and deported without them.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/03/deaths-rose-650-above-average-during-uk-heatwave-with-older-people-most-at-risk
Aug. 3, 2018
Nearly 700 more deaths than average were recorded during the 15-day peak of the heatwave in June and July in England and Wales, according to official statistics.
“The heatwave will have been associated with a number of excess deaths,” said Dr Adrian Boyle of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. “The people most at risk in a heatwave are the frail elderly with heart or kidney problems.”
ONS analysis for previous years indicate hundreds of additional deaths were associated with brief periods of heatwave conditions in July 2016 and June 2017. The full toll of the 2018 heatwave could reach 1,000, according to one prediction.
He said dehydration can lead to many issues, from dizziness and falls, to an increased risk of infections, heart attacks and strokes. High temperatures can increase air pollution, and some urban areas including London saw alerts issued for ozone pollution. “That can really affect those with respiratory conditions,” Scriven said.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/08/03/with-sweltering-heat-but-little-ac-north-korea-proclaims-an-unprecedented-natural-disaster/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.37d2884b20c6
Aug. 3, 2018
Unusually high temperatures have been seen across much of the world in recent weeks — but their effects could be particularly dangerous in North Korea, a country under strict economic sanctions and where air conditioning is rare.
This week, the North Korean government called record-high temperatures in the country “an unprecedented natural disaster” and said that country was working together to fight the problem.
An editorial published Thursday in Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling party, highlighted the difficulties that the long stretch of high temperatures would cause for North Korea's agricultural sector, specifically crops such as rice and maize.
The official Korea Central News Agency reported Friday that the temperature had reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and that the entire country was now working in a campaign to prevent damage to crops.
Since the end of July, many countries in East Asia have been racked by persistently high temperatures. The Japanese city of Kumagaya, 40 miles from Tokyo, on July 23 recorded that nation's highest-ever temperature, 106 degrees Fahrenheit. South Korea set its own record this week in the southern city of Daegu, which reached 105.7 degrees.
North Korea suffered a famine from the mid- to late 1990s that devastated its economy and led to the deaths of as many as 2 million people. The famine was partially attributed to a several floods that were followed by a drought in 1997, but it was exacerbated by poor food distribution by the government.
North Korea in the past has suggested it is concerned about climate change. Last year, an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as criticizing President Trump for pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change, dubbing it a “shortsighted and silly decision.” North Korea is a signatory to the 2015 agreement.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/portugal-swelters-record-heat-wave-triggers-public-health-warnings-n897351
Aug. 3, 2018
Portugal swelters as heat wave triggers public health warnings
Residents retreat to beaches and seek shade as Portugal's capital roasts in 106-degree heat.
Forecasts suggested temperatures could reach 111 degrees in Portugal and Spain this weekend, with the potential to break European records.
Nightfall only brought moderate relief as temperatures in Portugal’s capital only dropped to 79 degrees before climbing to 106 degrees Friday, nearing the city's record of 107.6 degrees set in 2003.


https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-03/american-men-still-aren-t-working-like-they-used-to
The prime-age employment-population ratio, that most straightforward of job market measures, hit a new post-recession high of 79.5 percent in the U.S. in July, according to today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This means that of Americans ages 25 to 54 who aren’t uniformed military service members or behind bars, 79.5 percent have jobs. The advantage of this metric over the oft-maligned unemployment rate (3.9 percent in July) is that it includes those who aren’t actively looking for jobs.
So anyway, 79.5 percent is a big improvement over a few years ago. It’s not breaking any records, though.
The U.S. employment-population ratio, which was among the highest in the world in the late 1990s and early 2000s but lost a lot of relative ground after that, also continues to lag that of other major developed economies.
For prime-age women, the employment-population ratio is back to its peak from the previous business cycle, and within 2 percentage points of its all-time high in March 2000. Given that most women who aren’t formally in the labor force report that home responsibilities are what’s keeping them out (that is, they are working; they’re just not getting paid), one has to wonder just how much higher the women’s employment rate can go during this expansion.
For U.S. prime-age men, meanwhile, the employment-population ratio is still almost 2 percentage points below its peak from the last business cycle, and nearly 10 points below its all-time high (the data series goes back to 1948) in March 1953.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/03/air-pollution-linked-to-changes-in-heart-structure
Aug. 3, 2018
Air pollution is linked to changes in the structure of the heart of the sort seen in early stages of heart failure, say researchers.
The finding could help explain the increased number of deaths seen in areas with high levels of dirty air. For example, a report last year revealed that people in the UK are 64 times more likely to die from the effect of air pollution than people living in Sweden. Such premature deaths can be linked to a number of causes including respiratory problems, stroke and coronary artery disease.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/treasury-raises-borrowing-outlook-with-2h-hitting-769-billionhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/treasury-raises-borrowing-outlook-with-2h-hitting-769-billion
July 30, 2018
The Treasury Department predicted the U.S. government’s borrowing needs in the second half of this year will jump to the most since the financial crisis a decade ago as the nation’s fiscal health deteriorates despite a strong economy.