And another day of more charges, DeSantis possibly pardoning Trump, Alito saying Congress lacks power, the warmest month on record, world oceans off-the-charts warm, climate tipping points, Covid, child labor, residual checks, and the Barbie movie being a litmus test comes to a close:
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” -- Albert Einstein
Donald Trump faces new charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Here’s what to know. In an updated indictment handed down Thursday, prosecutors allege that Trump asked a staffer to delete camera footage at his Florida estate in an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into his possession of classified documents. The indictment includes new counts of obstruction and willful retention of national defense information. Prosecutors also added a third defendant to the case: Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who they say schemed with Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, to conceal the footage from investigators. -- Lock him up, already.
Ron DeSantis suggests he would pardon Trump on any federal charges. The 2024 contender said he believes it won't be good for the country "to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison.” -- The Republican Party is the We Embrace Crime Party.
Justice Alito says Congress lacks the power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito says Congress lacks the power to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court, making him the first member of the court to take a public stand against proposals in Congress to toughen ethics rules for justices in response to increased scrutiny of their activities beyond the bench. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period,” Alito said. -- Justice Alito sure acts like he’s untouchable.
July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it’s the warmest month on record. July has been so hot thus far that scientists calculate that this month will be the hottest globally on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen, even though there are several days left to sweat through…They said Earth’s temperature has been temporarily passing over a key warming threshold: the internationally accepted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)…“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres told reporters in a New York briefing. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
The world’s oceans are off-the-charts warm — and the worst could be yet to come. “We’re not even at the height of the summer,” said Svenja Ryan, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “Typically, the ocean continues to warm until September, so I think certainly we can expect this heat wave to last into the fall.” This month, parts of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico were more than 5 degrees F warmer than normal. In recent days, a patch of the North Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada — a region normally kept relatively cool by the Labrador Current — was an astounding 9 degrees F warmer than usual...Scientists pay close attention to marine heat waves because the world’s oceans are crucial for the planet's ability to store heat. Studies have found that Earth’s oceans have absorbed about 90% of the heat trapped on the planet from greenhouse gas emissions since 1970. As climate change causes the world to warm, sea surface temperatures can offer clues about the health of these bodies of water. As such, the extent of the heat wave unfolding in the North Atlantic, its severity and its duration are all cause for alarm.
Signs show we're dangerously near some climate tipping points. We understand most changes as being gradual and linear (such as more heat waves as the average global temperature increases). In theory, those can be gradually reduced and even reversed if we cut and remove harmful emissions from the atmosphere. But tipping points are different. They can happen suddenly, like an on-off switch, pushing climate systems into a completely new state. And they're generally irreversible or difficult to reverse…The new study gives a stark climate example: England and France have milder winters than most of southern Canada despite being at a similar latitude. That's thanks to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, combined with the Gulf Stream. The AMOC is part of a global conveyor belt that circulates warm water from the tropics to colder regions and vice versa. Models predict an important climate tipping point will come when the AMOC shuts down or collapses, and stops circulating heat through the Atlantic. That's because it's powered by the sinking of dense salt water in the North Atlantic, and that process is getting swamped by the influx of lighter, freshwater from rapidly melting ice in Greenland…The study says the collapse will happen as early as 2025 and no later than 2095. That's far sooner than previous estimates that the tipping point is at roughly 4 C of warming. (So far, the Earth's surface has warmed about 1.1 to 1.3 C).
Your recent cold could be Covid-19, as the nation goes into a late summer wave. It’s time to stock up on tissues, bingeable TV options and Covid-19 tests. Yes, many signs are pointing to a Covid-19 summer surge – although one that’s far less intense than what emerged the past few summers. Experts say they do not expect that cases will be severe or that the uptick will be prolonged, and there are early signs from wastewater data that this wavelet may already be leveling out. But data posted this week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that many Covid-19 indicators, including hospital admissions, emergency department visits and test positivity, are once again on the rise.
Child labor violations involving 388 minors at McDonald’s uncovered since May, feds say. Federal officials found more child labor violations at McDonald’s restaurants after recently announcing 305 minors — including two 10-year-olds — were working at franchise locations illegally…In Louisiana, McDonald’s franchisee CLB Investments LLC had 72 minors, ages 14 and 15, working longer and later than legally allowed, officials said. Additionally, three employees under 16 were tasked with a job deemed dangerous for young workers — operating a deep fryer — which is prohibited under federal law…In Texas…The employer allowed 10 minors, ages 14 and 15, to work long and late hours in violation of federal law and had seven additional young workers assigned to dangerous tasks — working a deep fryer, an oven and operating a trash compactor, according to the Labor Department…This includes how two 10-year-olds were found working without pay at a McDonald’s in Louisville, where they prepared and served meals, worked the drive-thru, the cash register, cleaned the store and sometimes worked as late as 2 a.m.
Teen was sexually abused at therapeutic boarding school, lawsuit says as parents advocate oversight. A teenager with special needs was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an employee at a small private boarding school in South Carolina, his parents said in a lawsuit as they advocate for more oversight of similar therapeutic facilities. The teen, who attended Whetstone Academy between October 2018 and January 2020, was “frequently sexually assaulted” and raped beginning when he was 14, the lawsuit said.
Trans men enter Miss Italy pageant in droves after trans women are told they can’t compete. More than 100 transgender men have entered the Miss Italy pageant this week, according to an activist leading a protest against recent comments by the pageant’s organizer, who said trans women wouldn’t be allowed to compete.
Striking actors are sharing their low residual checks on social media to make a point. When striking actors aren't on the picket lines, many of them are using social media to underscore how making it in Hollywood doesn’t necessarily result in big payouts.
Texas man has hands and toes amputated after contracting typhus from a flea bite. Typhus is an infectious disease caused by bacteria that can spread from flea, lice and chiggers. Symptoms typically include fever, chills and body aches. Flea-borne typhus in particular usually causes nausea, cough, stomach pain and a rash from the bite that arises around day five of the illness.
‘Barbie’ is becoming a new litmus test for dating men. Part of the shock, these women say, comes from the assumption that men who are willing to engage in supportive conversations about feminism are hard to come by...“It just was really moving for me, and it really made me sad to feel that I am doing everything that I can to really step into who I am as a woman,” she said. “And then I’m having to leave my partner behind, not because I want to, but because he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to follow me.”
Hackers are infecting Call of Duty players with a self-spreading malware. Hackers are infecting players of an old Call of Duty game with a worm that spreads automatically in online lobbies, according to two analyses of the malware.
A simple technique may help with nail-biting, skin picking and other body-focused repetitive behaviors, new research suggests. Compulsive nail-biting, skin-picking, hairpulling, and lip- and cheek-biting are among a range of body-focused repetitive behaviors, or BFRBs, that can become a source of distress, but new research may offer hope for relief.
RIP Randy Meisner. He was 77.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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