Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Donald and his publicist prepare for a debate:
• Obama matches his highest approval rating in latest poll. In a CNN/ORC poll conducted last week, President Barack Obama’s approval among Americans reached 55 percent. That’s equals the highest level he’s ever reached, a percentage he reached twice before in the poll, in January 2011 and January 2012. Last year at this time, Obama’s approval rating was 44 percent. As in the past, there was a chasm in the latest poll between approval by whites (47 percent) and blacks (86 percent), but little difference between men (53 percent) and women (56 percent). Sixty-five percent of young Americans, aged 18-34, approved of Obama’s performance in office, while 50 percent of those over 45 did so.
• New Mexico House of Representatives votes to reinstate death penalty: The vote was 36-30, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. Democrats complained that the move was done after midnight when most of the spectators in the gallery and television reporters were gone. “This is the opposite of openness and transparency,” said House Minority Leader Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, later telling legislators: “If you’re proud of what you’re doing, you shouldn’t be doing it in secret.” Under then-Gov. Bill Richardson, the legislature repealed the death penalty in 2009. Since the state senate has a Democratic majority, the fate of the reinstatement is uncertain.
• Libertarian VP nominee William Weld will focus on beating Donald Trump:
Weld’s comments in a Globe interview mark a major shift in his mission since he pledged at the Libertarian convention in May that he would remain a Libertarian for life and would do all he could to help elect his running mate, Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico.
But things have changed. Johnson has committed several high-profile gaffes in recent weeks that revealed apparent weak spots in his foreign-policy knowledge. Meanwhile, Trump had seemed to be surging back into contention after he fell well behind in the polls in early August.
• NSA contractor busted for allegedly stealing classified material:
The alleged breach comes as the intelligence community has tried to clamp down on insider threats. That work intensified after NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked thousands of internal documents to reporters in 2013. [...]
Authorities did not say where Martin worked, but The New York Times and other news organizations said he was employed by [major intelligence contractor] Booz Allen Hamilton—which also hired Snowden—and worked for the NSA.
• Exxon was on the way to a hybrid-electric car in the 1970s.
• Hurricanes can be expected to get worse:
While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s prediction of a“near-normal” Atlantic hurricane season is still on track, scientists have pointed to Hurricane Matthew as the sort of fierce lashing that will become more common due to climate change.
There was previously far more certainty among climate scientists over the increase of temperatures than trends in hurricanes, but government officials arenow confident enough to say there has been a “substantial increase” in Atlantic hurricane activity since the 1980s, with the destruction set to ratchet up further as the world warms.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin adds an interesting spin on post-debate analysis. What might really be behind that $916 million Trump loss. New contributor @Canuck_Pundit points the finger at Marla. Clown panic + AR-15 = Perfect Storm of Derp.
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