Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Terrorism detective:
• Analysis shows 198 U.S. cities have seen an increase in the number of days each year in which the heat index is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit: The National Weather Service heat index combines air temperature and relative humidity to better gauge what it actually feels like outside. This is warmer than what the thermometer shows. For its latest report, Climate Central scrutinized the temperatures of 239 cities and found 198 had seen an increase in days of 90F degrees or hotter. When exercising, working, or playing sports, the NWS advises people to use “extreme caution” on those days. Researchers also found that 106 cities had had an increase in “danger” days that felt like 105F or hotter. “These extreme heat days are now comprising much of the summer for many cities in the South and Southwest, while areas of the country that had relatively few summer days reach the 90F heat index in the past are now experiencing weeks of them,” the report stated. And that situation is going to spread and worsen.
• Black women on average make 61 cents an hour for every $1 white men make: Over the course of a 40-year work life, that average works out to $946,000 lower earnings. White women average about 80 cents an hour compared to white men. Today is Black Women's Equal Pay Day, the day when what black women earned in 2018 plus what they’ve earned so far in 2019 catches up with what white men made in 2018 alone.
• Gov’t reports that from March 2018-March 2019, the economy added half a million fewer new jobs than it previously had estimated: Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes benchmark revisions of its monthly job tallies to take into account data that weren’t available when the original estimates were made. These revisions can be quite large. In the past 10 years, they have fallen in the ±0.2% range. But this time around the preliminary benchmark revision is -0.3%. The final benchmark revision won’t be added to the March-to-March figures until February 2020, and the tally of 501,000 fewer jobs could turn out to be somewhat higher or lower. But it won’t change the fact that job creation in that period was significantly weaker than was bragged about by Donald Trump. The revisions didn’t all go in one direction, however. While retail trade was revised downward by 146,000 jobs for the 12-month period, transportation and warehousing gained 79,000 more jobs.
• Eight officials knew that there were instructions not to leave Jeffrey Epstein alone in his cell: And yet, for the 24 hours before the New York City medical examiner says Epstein hanged himself with a bed sheet, those instructions were ignored. That worries investigators, according to anonymous sources, but they caution that this doesn’t mean criminal conduct was involved. Epstein’s lawyers haven’t accepted the official conclusion that the convicted sex offender killed himself. The FBI and the Department of Justice’s inspector general are still investigating the circumstances of his death.
• Lawsuit seeks to force West Virginia’s billionaire governor to live in the state capital: The state constitution makes it mandatory that the governor "shall reside at the seat of government." But at a court hearing Wednesday, the argument centered on whether Republican Gov. Jim Justice is “residing” in Charleston if he sleeps there but spends there rest of his time somewhere else, or vice versa. Lawmakers have expressed frustration that lawsuits against some of the billionaire’s more than 100 businesses in coal, agriculture, and other endeavors have tied up time he should be spending doing what he was elected to do. His lawyers call the residence lawsuit “frivolous” and a “waste of time.”
• In the 1980s, there were about 60,000 nuclear warheads in world arsenals. There are still nearly 14,000: Some 93% of those are Russian and American, and most of those are being kept in military stockpiles awaiting dismantling. But the rest are deployed, with some 1,800 U.S., French, and Russian warheads on high alert, meaning they can be launched very quickly on short notice. All the nuclear nations keep upgrading these weapons, introducing new types, and in the case of China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea, adding to the total warhead tally.
• One more indicator of economic trouble ahead: For the first time in nearly decade, the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index has contracted, dropping below the 50 mark to 49.9 for the first time since September 2009. That was well below expectations.
• Iran unveils new surface-to-air defensive missile as President Hassan Rouhani says “talks are useless”: “Now that our enemies do not accept logic, we cannot respond with logic,” Rouhani said in a televised speech, adding, “When the enemy launches a missile against us, we cannot give a speech and say: ‘Mr. Rocket, please do not hit our country and our innocent people. Rocket-launching sir, if you can please hit a button and self-destroy the missile in the air.’”
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Trump's shock troops insist on making Greenland, like covfefe, a thing. But which of the real crises Greg Dworkin rounds up is it supposed to divert us from? Dems win/lose in court on emoluments/subpoenas. Giuliani puts the cheating out for bids.