Had a long, enjoyable discussion with the inestimable Russell Brand last week, part of which is shown in his free preview above. It’s been amazing to watch his show expand since we last spoke, a testament to many things I think, two in particular. He obviously has unique wit and enviable communications skills, which can take anyone far in a YouTube-driven media landscape, but his secret sauce is the easy, accepting vibe of his politics. When talking about issues he focuses on whether he finds humility, honesty, or joyfulness in the picture and celebrates accordingly, but if he finds nothing but meanness and narrowness, he just makes a note of it and moves on.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (WOWT) - Three people were burned in an electrical incident at a Google facility on Monday.

The Council Bluffs Fire Department was called to the Google data center, located north of Highway 275, at about noon.

By Ye Xie Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

Ray Dalio’s take on US-China tensions over Taiwan contains some alarming warnings.

While the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund wrote that an all-out war is still considered “improbable,” a gauge he uses to track the conflict between the two countries has surged to a record and is comparable to previous major wars. He warned that the tit-for-tat escalation could easily get out of control, as has often happened in history.

SHANGHAI/NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio's huge popularity in China has not only drawn local investors flocking to his funds but also spawned home-grown challengers using his "All Weather" strategy and brand to try to beat him at his own game.

Now, the Connecticut-based hedge fund giant he founded, Bridgewater Associates, is pushing back.

In recent months, Bridgewater registered in China several "All Weather" trademarks in English and Chinese, an effort to tackle the "confusion" created by local copycats, said Joanna Alpert, Bridgewater China's portfolio manager.

WEST PALM BEACH, FL — High-level Chinese asset and sex trafficker Hunter Biden breathed a sigh of relief this evening as an FBI raid team passed by his West Palm Beach vacation home to raid Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago.

"Whew! Thought they had me for a minute there," Biden sighed, according to sources before going back to smoking crack with a hooker on a pile of cash freshly delivered by Chinese agents. "Glad to know the FBI is still working for my Dad!"

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he, like everyone else, is going to “wait and see” whether former President Donald Trump is going to run in 2024, before making his own decision about a possible bid for the White House.

We noted in early July that Italy declared a state of emergency in five northern regions surrounding the Po due to a dangerous heatwave and drought. The country's longest river snakes around 405 miles in northern Italy and is used for drinking water, crop irrigation, and hydroelectric power. 

According to the European news outlet Euronews, this is the sixth water emergency for the Po River basin in two decades. 

Who knows what else will be found as water levels drop to dangerously low levels... 

Since May, the fourth set of human remains has been discovered at Lake Mead as water levels recede amid a severe drought. 

The National Park Service tweeted rangers received an emergency call reporting the "discovery of human skeletal remains" at Swim Beach in Nevada on Saturday.

In the effort to get it passed, Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made some grand claims, which they called “facts,” about the previous ban on rifles leading to decreasing crime. But those facts don’t appear to be backed up by evidence.

“Supporters of the bans are calling their assertions ‘facts,’ in an effort to mislead the public,” Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) told The Epoch Times. “Many of the Democratic Members of Congress were purposefully misleading in their assertions that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban reduced crime. This level of willful ignorance would be comical if the effects of what they are trying to do wasn’t so blatantly unconstitutional.”

The ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The US will participate in war games with the Indian military in an area of India that is less than 62 miles away from the country’s disputed border with China, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAN).

The drills will be held from October 18-31 and will be the eighteenth iteration of annual exercises between the two militaries known as Yudh Abhyas, which is Hindi for "war practice." They will be held in the Auli area of the Indian state of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas mountain range.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” he said.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s offices in Washington and for the Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The news of the FBI action comes amid an increasingly complex thicket of legal threats encircling Trump and his inner circle. Most prominent among them is the escalating investigation of efforts by Trump and his allies to disrupt the transition of power in 2020, in part by attempting to appoint fraudulent presidential electors that would create a pretense for blocking Joe Biden’s victory. -Politico

Norway on Monday announced that due to an 'uncertain and demanding situation' over sky-high electricity prices - caused by low water levels at hydroelectric stations (in what they refer to as a "weather-dependent power supply"), as well as the "dramatic situation in Europe" regarding Ukraine, the government will be limiting electricity exports "when the water level in the reservoirs drops to very low levels."

Moments ago, Donald Trump - who is still banned by Twitter - published a statement on Truth Social in which he said that his Florida home, Mar A Lago is “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents", an assault which according to Trump "could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries." He is probably right. His full statement posted on his Truth Social account is below:

Both official and independent data show that China’s economy has slumped further in the second quarter of the year, with manufacturing slowing down unexpectedly and a downturn in the real estate sector intensifying. This has raised fears of a wave of layoffs in the second half of the year adding to already severe unemployment issues in China.