AARP

According to a recent survey, American families are more worried than ever about being able to pay their medical bills. And rightly so. Unfortunately, a bill now working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives would make health care even less affordable and less secure for millions for Americans. AARP opposes the bill — called the American Health Care Act — because it would hike premiums for older Americans, weaken Medicare and put at risk the 17.4 million low-income seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid. At the same time, it is a bonanza for insurance and drug companies.   Continue reading “Health Bill a Bitter Pill for Older Americans”

Fortune

Washington is bracing for a white nationalist rally that law enforcement agencies will try to prevent from descending into a melee like the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, that cast a shadow over Donald Trump’s presidency a year ago.

Marking the anniversary on Saturday, Trump condemned “all types of racism and acts of violence,” a shift from his widely-criticized equivocation of 2017.   Continue reading “Washington, D.C., Braces for White Nationalist Rally”

Yahoo News

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Serap, a 23-year-old clerk at a clothes store in central Istanbul, is sure of who to blame for the precipitous slide in Turkey’s lira currency.

“This crisis is created by America,” she said.

The lira has lost more than 35 percent against the dollar this year and hit a fresh low on Friday, its biggest one day fall since Turkey’s 2001 financial crisis.   Continue reading “On Istanbul streets, defiant Turks see U.S. hand behind lira crisis”

Atlanta Journal Constitution

An Atlanta charter school will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance as part of its morning meeting agenda.

Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School on Grant Street announced the change Tuesday in a statement from elementary campus president Lara Zelski.   Continue reading “Atlanta school removes Pledge of Allegiance from morning ritual”

USA Today

SAN FRANCISCO – On Sept. 8, an ungainly, 2,000-foot-long contraption will steam under the Golden Gate Bridge in what’s either a brilliant quest or a fool’s errand.

Dubbed the Ocean Cleanup Project, this giant sea sieve consists of pipes that float at the surface of the water with netting below, corralling trash in the center of a U-shaped design.   Continue reading “A giant floating trash collector will try to scoop up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch”

Daily Mail

Blocking sunlight to cool the Earth will not save humanity’s farmland from climate change, according to a new study that dismisses a leading global warming prevention theory.

Researchers had speculated that injecting particles into the atmosphere would lower rising global temperatures enough to stop crops from dying out.

But scientists analysing the past effects of Earth-cooling volcanic eruptions showed that shielding the atmosphere damages crops as much as it helps them.   Continue reading “Blocking sunlight to cool the Earth will not work”

Washington Examiner – by Caitlin Yilek

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is calling on other tech companies to ban more sites like InfoWars, and says the survival of American democracy depends on it.

“Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it,” Murphy tweeted Monday.  Continue reading “‘Survival of our democracy’ depends on banning sites like InfoWars, Dem senator says”

Watts Up With That – by Bob Bradley

“If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit [between now and] the year 2025 to 2050…. The rise in global temperature is predicted to … caus[e] sea levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the next century.”

— Philip Shabecoff, “Global Warming Has Begun.” New York Times, June 24, 1988.

It has been 30 years since the alarm bell was sounded for manmade global warming caused by modern industrial society. And predictions made on that day—and ever since—continue to be falsified in the real world.   Continue reading “Failed Prognostications of Climate Alarm”

Daily Mail

A woman’s shocking photo showing her veteran brother waiting ‘eight hours’ for treatment at a Tennessee Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center has gone viral.

Gail Hobbs shared the image of Tony Mims lying on the floor at the Alvin C. York Campus of the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, located in Murfreesboro, when he went there for treatment on Thursday.   Continue reading “Photo of ill veteran lying on the floor of VA hospital”

CBC News

Many Sears Canada retirees found it hard to take this week when they got their first reduced pension payment — chopped by 30 per cent.

They had been bracing for a 20 per cent cut but learned in June it would shrink by a further 10 percentage points.

“It’s terrible,” said Ron Husk of Mount Pearl, N.L., who worked for Sears for 35 years. On Wednesday, his monthly pension payout dropped by almost $450.   Continue reading “‘It’s going to be hard’: Sears pension payments cut by 30% this week”

CBS News

Hurricane Hector strengthened to a Category 4 storm on Saturday as it churned toward the Central Pacific. The National Hurricane Center said the Hawaiian Islands should monitor the storm’s progress.

As of 11 p.m. ET Saturday, Hector was located 1,395 miles south of Hilo, Hawaii. It had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph and moving at 12 mph. Continue reading “Hurricane Hector becomes Category 4 storm, heads toward Hawaii”

Rolling Stone

The National Rifle Association warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, and that it could soon “be unable to exist… or pursue its advocacy mission.” (Read the NRA’s legal complaint at the bottom of this story.)

The reason, according to the NRA filing, is not its deep entanglement with alleged Russian agents like Maria Butina. Instead, the gun group has been suing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state’s financial regulators since May, claiming the NRA has been subject to a state-led “blacklisting campaign” that has inflicted “tens of millions of dollars in damages.”   Continue reading “The NRA Says It’s in Deep Financial Trouble, May Be ‘Unable to Exist’”

American Trucker

Uber announced it was halting efforts to develop autonomous trucks, a decision that will not affect its ongoing Uber Freight division that matches available loads with truck drivers through a smartphone app.

Uber said it will continue developing self-driving  cars, but has shut down the truck unit initially known as Otto. It made a splash in October 2016 when it made a 120-mile autonomous delivery of Budweiser in Colorado.   Continue reading “Uber halts development of self-driving trucks”

Business Insider

Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis outlined a change to the Navy’s approach to aircraft carrier deployments, mixing up when carriers leave and return to port, shortening their time at sea, and adding flexibility to where they go and what they do.

The change is meant to lessen the strain on the fleet and its personnel while keeping potential rivals in the dark about carrier movements.

Continue reading “The Navy is moving its aircraft carriers to ready them for a potential fight with China and Russia — here’s where they’re headed”

Yahoo News

Gun rights activist groups found a way around the temporary halting of 3D-printed gun blueprints by publishing another set of blueprints on a new website Tuesday, which they say is activity protected under the First Amendment.

“Through CodeIsFreeSpeech.com, we intend to encourage people to consider new and different aspects of our nation’s marketplace of ideas – even if some government officials disagree with our views or dislike our content – because information is code, code is free speech, and free speech is freedom,” reads a statement on the site, which was created by a variety of groups including the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Firearms Policy Foundation.    Continue reading “Gun Rights Activists Defy Court Ruling, Post 3D-Printed Gun Blueprints Online”

Army Times

WASHINGTON — Under the gun to increase the size of the force, the Army is issuing more waivers for past drug use or bad conduct by recruits, and pouring an extra $200 million into bonuses this year to attract and retain soldiers.

According to data obtained by The Associated Press, nearly one-third of all the waivers granted by the Army in the first six months of this fiscal year were for conduct and drug problems, mainly involving marijuana use. That number is significantly higher than the other three military services, and represents a steady increase over the past three years.

Continue reading “Army using drug waivers, bonuses to fill ranks”