AP News
Biden: 'I hope I don't take the bait' in debate with Trump
Joe Biden has said he’d “beat the hell out of” President Donald Trump over his comments about women if they were in high school. But on the debate stage, as opponents for the presidency, it’s a different story.
When Biden and Trump meet in their first presidential debate later this month, Biden says he has one goal: “I hope I don’t take the bait.”
“I hope I don’t get baited into a brawl with this guy, because that’s the only place he’s comfortable,” Biden said Thursday during a fundraiser.
Taliban say peace talks with Afghan team to start Saturday
The long-awaited peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government’s negotiating team are to begin on Saturday in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, the Taliban and Qatar’s foreign ministry said Thursday.
The talks — known as intra-Afghan negotiations — were laid out in a peace deal that Washington brokered with the Taliban and signed in February, also in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. At the time, the deal was seen as Afghanistan’s best chance at ending more than four decades of relentless war.
Shortly after the announcement, … Donald Trump said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would travel to Qatar, to attend the start of the negotiations. Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, confirmed in a tweet that their delegation will be in Qatar’s capital of Doha for the talks and said the president wished the negotiating team success.
CNN
A whistleblower is alleging that top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit … Donald Trump's agenda by downplaying Russia's efforts to interfere in the US and the threat posed by White supremacists, according to documents reviewed by CNN and a source familiar with the situation.
The whistleblower claims that acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf instructed DHS officials earlier this year to "cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference" and, instead, focus their efforts on gathering information related to activities being carried out by China and Iran. […]
Separately, both Wolf and [Deputy Secretary Ken] Cuccinelli also tried to alter a report to downplay the threat posed by White supremacists and instead emphasize the role of leftist groups due to concerns about how the initial language would reflect on the President, according to a source familiar with the claims raised by the whistleblower.
Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said … Donald Trump "seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security" after Trump revealed in interviews with Bob Woodward the existence of a classified nuclear weapons system.
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, the former vice president said Trump's comments to Woodward -- made in a series of 18 interviews for the journalist's upcoming book "Rage" -- were "not a surprise."
"You wonder why people in the intelligence community wondered from the very beginning whether you could share data with him, 'cause they don't trust him. They don't trust what he'll say or do," Biden said. "He seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security, no conception of anything other than, what can he do to promote himself?"
Politico
Trump rushes to contain fallout from his interviews with Woodward
Donald Trump launched a new counterattack against The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward on Thursday — arguing the veteran reporter would have released recordings of the president’s remarks about the coronavirus sooner if they were truly politically damaging or revealed a threat to Americans’ safety.
The offensive by the president comes as he continues to face intense criticism in the hours after the Post and other media outlets on Wednesday published excerpts of Trump’s 18 on-the-record interviews with Woodward, conducted for the journalist’s forthcoming book.
Two tapes of the president which have received particular scrutiny were recorded in February and March, as the White House remained publicly dismissive of the outbreak. In those conversations with Woodward earlier this year, however, Trump called the coronavirus “deadly stuff” and acknowledged he was eager to “play … down” the disease.
$2,933 for ‘Girl’s Night’: Medicaid chief’s consulting expenses revealed
When Seema Verma, the Trump administration's top Medicaid official, went to a reporter's home in November 2018 for a "Girl's Night" thrown in her honor, taxpayers footed the bill to organize the event: $2,933.
When Verma wrote an op-ed on Fox News' website that fall, touting President Donald Trump's changes to Obamacare, taxpayers got charged for one consultant's price to place it: $977.
And when consultants spent months promoting Verma to win awards like Washingtonian magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Washington" and appear on high-profile panels, taxpayers got billed for that too: more than $13,000.
Salon
Pro-Trump Black nonprofit quietly shuttered following sketchy cash giveaways
The Urban Revitalization Coalition (URC), a controversial nonprofit organization run by two of … Trump's most prominent Black surrogates, appears to have been effectively closed down this spring after reports that its cash giveaways to Black voters may have violated IRS rules governing nonprofits.
The shutdown happened before the IRS automatically revoked the group's tax status on May 15 for "not filing a Form 990-series return or notice for three consecutive years." The URC was eventually placed on the IRS "Automatic Revocation List" on Aug. 11, and, according to co-founder Darrell Scott — a Cleveland pastor closely allied to the Trump campaign — was first notified of this by CNN. […]
Scott, a Trump campaign adviser who has visited the White House and traveled on Air Force One, told CNN in August that URC were unaware that the IRS had pulled their status until the network contacted them.
Susan Collins' plight gets worse with new corruption allegation, possible ethics probe
The American Democracy Legal Fund (ADLF) sent a letter Wednesday to the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee asking to open an investigation into allegations that Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — a Republican who faces a tight re-election battle this fall — used her office to financially benefit her husband and, subsequently, herself.
The charges, laid out in the letter and exclusively obtained by Salon, are informed by a recent HuffPost article reporting that Collins — who now trails Democrat Sara Gideon in most polls, in one of the most closely-watched races in the country — has advocated and voted for policies that benefited her husband's consulting and lobbying business.
"This is a clear pattern of unethical and corrupt behavior by Sen. Susan Collins and the Senate Ethics Committee must begin an immediate investigation into her abuse of office," ADLF's Brad Woodhouse told Salon in a statement.
The Washington Post
NASA announces it’s looking for companies to help mine the moon
NASA wants to mine the moon.
The space agency announced Thursday it is looking for companies to collect rocks and dirt from the lunar surface, and then sell them to NASA, as part of a technology development program that would eventually help astronauts “live off the land.”
In a tweet, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote that the agency “is buying lunar soil from a commercial provider! It’s time to establish the regulatory certainty to extract and trade space resources.” […]
Swept up in the federal response to Portland protests: ‘I didn’t know if I was going to be seen again’
The protest outside Portland’s federal courthouse had died down by 3:40 a.m. on July 29, when a green laser shined down from a seventh-floor balcony used as a lookout by federal agents.
The laser landed on John Hacker, an activist and citizen-journalist standing in a park about 170 feet away. It skittered across Hacker’s feet, head and torso for more than 45 seconds. Suddenly, an unmarked van pulled in front of him. Doors slid open. Heavily armed men in camouflage tactical gear surrounded Hacker and took him into custody.
Hacker, 36, is among nearly two dozen people arrested but not charged during the Trump administration’s five-week response, from July through early August, to the demonstrations against police brutality in Portland. Before letting Hacker go, federal agents collected a DNA swab, photographed him and confiscated a phone that has not been returned, he said.
Former officers charged in George Floyd killing turn blame on each other
The four former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing appear to be turning on each other, with each offering significantly different versions of the infamous arrest that acknowledge Floyd should not have been allowed to die that day but also deflect the blame to others.
The four men have said in court documents that they all thought someone else was in charge of the scene on May 25 — with rookie officers arguing they were deferring to a veteran, and the veteran saying he was simply assisting in an arrest that was in progress. All have said in court documents that the relationship between the veteran officer — Derek Chauvin — and the others is at the heart of the issue, as each officer perceived their role, and who was in charge, quite differently. Chauvin was the officer shown with his knee on Floyd’s neck as he struggled to breathe in videos of the ill-fated arrest.
NPR News
Court Blocks Trump's Attempt To Change Who Counts For Allocating House Seats
A special three-judge court in New York has ruled to block the Trump administration's efforts to make an unprecedented change to the constitutionally mandated count of every person living in the country who is included in the constitutionally mandated count of every person living in the U.S. that determines each state's share share of the seats in Congress.
The president, the court concluded, cannot leave unauthorized immigrants out of that specific count.
The ruling comes after the July release of a memorandum by … Trump that directs Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, to provide Trump with information needed to exclude immigrants living in the United States without authorization from the apportionment count.
Pandemic Financially Imperils Nearly Half Of American Households, Poll Finds
… many in the U.S. [are] facing a cascade of economic and health-related problems revealed in a new survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The poll finds nearly half the households in America — 46% — report facing serious financial pain during the pandemic. It is a problem that is more acute in the four largest U.S. cities, and among Latino and Black households. Hundreds of billions in government stimulus and other support did not make an apparent dent in their struggles.
In addition, over half, or 54%, of those with household incomes below $100,000 reported serious financial problems, compared with only 20% of those with incomes above that threshold. […]
At the time of the survey, the federal government was offering $600 a week in additional benefits for those collecting unemployment. That was not renewed after July. That means things have likely gotten worse.
Reuters
Republicans back Trump despite reports he called soldiers 'suckers' and 'losers': Reuters/Ipsos poll
Half of Americans believe media reports that … Donald Trump referred to U.S. soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” despite his denials, but the alleged comments do not appear to have hurt his standing among Republicans, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows. […]
Yet most Republicans still hold favorable views of Trump, and a majority of Republicans say the recent news has not influenced their choice for president.
U.S. Senate defeat of 'skinny' coronavirus aid bill puts it on 'dead-end street'
The U.S. Senate on Thursday killed a Republican bill that would have provided around $300 billion in new coronavirus aid, as Democrats seeking far more funding prevented it from advancing.
By a vote of 52-47, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed in the 100-member chamber to advance the partisan bill toward passage, leaving the future of any new coronavirus aid in doubt.
“It’s a sort of a dead-end street,” Republican Senator Pat Roberts told reporters following the vote.
Exclusive: Microsoft believes Russians that hacked Clinton targeted Biden campaign firm - sources
Microsoft Corp recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to four people briefed on the matter.
The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said.
Microsoft Corp identified the suspected hacking group as the same set of spies blamed by the U.S. government for breaking into the campaign of Democratic former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaking the emails of her staff, two of the sources said.
The Oregonian
Oregon wildfires burn nearly 900,000 acres
A unprecedented rash of Oregon wildfires has burned nearly 900,000 acres, prompted widespread evacuations and killed at least three people.
About 3,000 firefighters are working the blazes, which stretch from southern Oregon to Clackamas County. Tens of thousands of Oregon residents have been forced to flee their homes. The five largest fires are each 5% contained or less.
“We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across our state,” Gov. Kate Brown said Thursday.
Oregon wildfires threaten Opal Creek, Silver Falls, other beloved natural landmarks
Sirens and bullhorns blared before sunrise, stirring people sleeping in tents and cabins nestled into the lush forest of Silver Falls State Park. By the time the sun rose through smoke-filled skies Tuesday morning, the park was completely empty. […]
“Anything could happen to the park,” Oregon State Parks spokesman Chris Havel said Thursday. “We’re watching it, but there’s really not much we can do.”
Silver Falls is considered the “crown jewel” of Oregon’s state parks system, with nearly a dozen beautiful waterfalls cascading into a forested canyon east of Salem. To see the park burn would be devastating for many Oregonians, though it’s far from the only natural treasure endangered by fire.
San Francisco Chronicle
California’s new largest-ever wildfire: North Coast’s August Complex shatters record set two years ago
California’s historically bad fire season marked another sobering milestone Thursday when the August Complex burning on the North Coast became the largest wildfire in state history.
The lightning-caused complex started on Aug. 17 as 37 different fires and has since torched 471,185 acres in the Mendocino National Forest, mostly northeast of Lake Pillsbury. It was 24% contained on Thursday. […]
Just one day before it became California’s largest-ever recorded wildfire, the August Complex on Wednesday had reached the second-largest status, displacing the record that had been set just last month by the SCU Lightning Complex, which has burned 396,624 acres in the South and East bays since it broke out Aug. 18. California’s third-largest wildfire is the LNU Lightning Complex, which also started Aug. 17 and has burned 363,220 acres in two parts of the North Bay.
‘The fire-breathing dragon of clouds’: Formation over Creek Fire thought to be biggest in US history
A giant thunderstorm hovered above the Creek Fire on Saturday, shooting smoke plumes into the stratosphere as flames tore through the Sierra National Forest below — and an obscure meteorological term briefly burst into the popular lexicon: pyrocumulonimbus.
That’s the name for a rare formation that NASA dubbed the “the fire-breathing dragon of clouds.” It occurs when the scorched air from within a wildfire or volcano meets moist, buoyant air a few miles above the earth. The resulting mass is essentially a rain-less thunderstorm sitting atop a giant fire, said Dr. David Peterson, a meteorologist with the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey.
Scientists believe the pyrocumulonimbus that took shape over the Creek Fire could be the biggest ever produced above U.S. soil.
Los Angeles Times
Devastating toll from California firestorms: 12 dead, over 3,900 structures destroyed
As crews work desperately to rein in more than two dozen major blazes burning across California, the ferocious firestorm has left at least 12 people dead and destroyed more than 3,900 structures, officials said Thursday.
Another dozen people were reported missing Wednesday in the area of the North Complex fire — a massive blaze around Oroville that mushroomed this week into an inferno that already has been blamed for three deaths.
The massive complex of fires has scorched more than 252,000 acres and forced some 20,000 residents in Plumas, Butte and Yuba counties from their homes.
The Guardian
Brexit talks on brink as UK rejects EU call to drop law-breaking plan
The Brexit talks appear to be on the point of collapse after Britain flatly rejected an EU ultimatum over the government’s plans to break international law by reneging on key parts of the withdrawal agreement.
The clash on Thursday followed an EU demand that Boris Johnson drop his plans within three weeks or face financial or trade sanctions, after the bloc’s lawyers concluded that Britain had already breached the withdrawal agreement by tabling the controversial internal market bill.
In a hard-hitting statement following a meeting with Michael Gove in London, the European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič had put the prime minister on notice that he needed to regain Brussels’ trust. He also raised the prospect of both a collapse in the ongoing trade and security talks and a legal battle with the bloc.
“The EU does not accept the argument that the aim of the draft [internal market] bill is to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) agreement. In fact, it is of the view that it does the opposite,” the European commission said in a statement.
Humans exploiting and destroying nature on unprecedented scale – report
Animal populations have plunged an average of 68% since 1970, as humanity pushes the planet’s life support systems to the edge
Wildlife populations are in freefall around the world, driven by human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture, according to a major new assessment of the abundance of life on Earth.
On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London (ZSL)’s biennial Living Planet Report 2020. Two years ago, the figure stood at 60%.
The Irish Times
Brexit: Britain says it may break international law in ‘limited way’
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has said he expects the UK would “break international law” with its proposals to change how a key agreement with the EU operates.
Mr Lewis told MPs on Tuesday it would be in a “very specific and limited way”, adding there are “clear precedents” for the UK and other countries which need to consider their international obligations as circumstances change.
His Labour counterpart Louise Haigh described the admission as “absolutely astonishing” and warned it would “seriously undermine” the UK’s authority on the international stage.
EU threatens legal action if UK does not withdraw treaty ‘violation’ by end of month
The European Union has threatened to take legal action against Britain if it does not reverse a controversial plan that would tear up Brexit-related guarantees aimed at avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland.
All 27 EU members on Thursday sat in to observe emergency talks in London after the British government acknowledged it was prepared to break international law and reverse aspects of the Withdrawal Agreement.
During the meeting, the EU’s Maros Sefcovic told the British that proposing the new Internal Market Bill had “seriously damaged trust” and that Westminster must remove the parts that violate the treaty by the end of the month.
Media Matters
Mark Zuckerberg denies Facebook is a “right-wing echo chamber,” but the facts tell a different story
In a new interview with Mike Allen of Axios, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the social media platform from accusations of being a “right-wing echo chamber,” explained why the site doesn’t treat anti-vaccination content the same way it treats COVID-19 misinformation, and contemplated whether history will look back on the company as “an accelerant of social destruction.” But contrary to what Zuckerberg said, Facebook is a right-wing echo chamber, even if he doesn’t like that characterization.
During the most recent episode of Axios on HBO, host Mike Allen confronted Zuckerberg with some uncomfortable truths about what sort of content is currently thriving on his platform. Zuckerberg’s counter-argument was not especially strong. […]
Zuckerberg’s denial that the platform presents “highly partisan” stories in a right-wing media echo chamber is simply false. New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose has been documenting Facebook’s best-performing content. Day after day, the results tell a tough truth: Facebook is overflowing with right-wing content.
Corporate broadcast TV news fails to make crucial connection between record-breaking California wildfires and climate crisis
Over the long Labor Day weekend, an explosive fire in the Sierra Nevada and record-shattering heat accelerated the climate crisis unfolding in California. The fires this season have already burned more acres than during any other year on record — and there are still several months left in the fire season… the vast majority of corporate TV news coverage from September 5 through September 8 ignored the relationship between climate change and California’s wildfires. That’s part of a troubling trend, and it comes on the heels of an analysis that found that only 4% of broadcast news wildfire coverage during the month of August mentioned climate change.
Bloomberg
U.S. Job Losses Persist as Claims Come In Higher Than Forecasts
Applications for U.S. state unemployment benefits held steady last week, a sign extensive job losses are persisting as the nation struggles to control the coronavirus.
Initial jobless claims in regular state programs were unchanged at 884,000 in the week ended Sept. 5, Labor Department data showed Thursday. Due to a change in the methodology for seasonal adjustment earlier this month, the figure is directly comparable only to the prior week. Continuing claims -- the total number of Americans claiming ongoing unemployment assistance in those programs -- rose 93,000 to 13.4 million in the week ended Aug. 29.
Trump’s 2016 China-Bashing Playbook Risks Flopping Against Biden
Donald Trump is reviving his 2016 campaign playbook on attacking China, but running as the incumbent means defending a record of only limited success in rewriting the economic relationship with Beijing.
Much of what the Trump team has laid out in recent weeks sounds like campaign promises made four years ago: Stopping outsourcing and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., ending dependence on China for crucial inputs and supporting companies that make things in America. […]
Yet, despite hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs that the U.S. levied against China, sanctions imposed on Chinese officials and actions to restrict the Asian nation’s technology companies, the vast majority of American firms have no plans to pack up shop in China and come back to the U.S.
Ars Technica
Climate change may wreck economy unless we act soon, federal report warns
The ever-worsening climate crisis is already causing waves of human suffering—both internationally and here in the United States. And now, a new report from a US financial regulator finds that climate change is also poised to do major damage to some of the institutions with the most power to help mitigate it: Wall Street banks and investors.
Climate change "poses a major risk to the stability of the US financial system and to its ability to sustain the American economy," the report (196-page PDF) from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) begins. Regulators "must recognize that climate change poses serious emerging risks to the US financial system, and they should move urgently and decisively to measure, understand, and address these risks."
The report, called "Managing Climate Risk in the US Financial System," was written by a group of 35 advisors from major banks such as Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy and Ceres, energy firms such as BP and ConocoPhillips, several investment firms, and experts from several universities. It is the first analysis of climate change to come from a US financial regulator looking specifically at how change, already underway, will affect trading of agricultural commodities and futures, the real estate and insurance markets, and all the complex financial instruments that are built on multiple industries taken together.
It’s the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, and the tropics are bonkers
The historical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season—the point at which, climatologically speaking, the most activity takes place—is today. And this being 2020, the Atlantic tropics are not wanting in vim and vigor.
The latest outlook from the National Hurricane Center shows two active named systems in the Atlantic: tropical storms Paulette and Rene. Although both of these storms should turn north well short of the continental United States, there is some concern about Paulette reaching Bermuda as a Category 1 hurricane by early next week.