Daily News 08/14
Daily News Archives Since June 2026
Ever Rising Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Al Items in U.S. City Average is $332.813 ( 1982-84 = $1.00)
Countries That Are Facing High Levels of Drought in 2026
Global Water Crisis: A Look At World’s Water Woes
One Disaster After Another: Global Warming is Global Warning
Video: Iran Unveils New ROD-3 Missile With Enough Range to Reach Europe and the U.S. | Scott Ritter Iran Unveils New ROD-3 Missile With Enough Range to Reach Europe and the U.S. | Scott Ritter. In this powerful interview, former U.S. Marine intelligence officer and military analyst Scott Ritter delivers a stark assessment of the escalating confrontation involving Iran, the United States, Israel, and the wider Middle East. Ritter examines Iran’s military posture, its nuclear capabilities, the Strait of Hormuz, and the growing danger of another major escalation. Ritter discusses Pickaxe Mountain, the underground Iranian facility that has become a major focus of speculation surrounding Iran’s 60% enriched uranium. He explains why the location and the whereabouts of Iran’s enriched uranium remain uncertain, while warning that the unresolved nuclear issue could become a dangerous factor in future U.S.-Iran tensions.
A major focus is Iran’s newly unveiled ROD-3 missile. Ritter says the missile represents a potential long-range delivery capability and highlights Iran’s message that if it is attacked, it will be capable of striking back. He argues that Iran is rebuilding a posture of strategic deterrence after the U.S.-Iran conflict and is moving toward what he describes as a “nuclear threshold state.”
Video: MASSIVE! NASA Just Saw What El Niño 2026 Is Doing to the PacificNASA is already seeing major changes across the Pacific Ocean as El Niño 2026 continues to develop. New observations from NASA’s PACE satellite reveal substantially lower chlorophyll concentrations across parts of the central equatorial Pacific compared with 2025 — a signal linked to changes in phytoplankton, the microscopic organisms that support much of the marine food web. But the bigger story may be what happens next. As El Niño weakens normal Pacific upwelling, fewer nutrients can reach surface waters, changing where marine productivity is concentrated. Along the coast of Peru, unusual ocean conditions have already affected anchovy distribution and contributed to growing pressure on marine wildlife and fisheries. According to NOAA’s latest El Niño 2026 forecast, the event is expected to strengthen through the end of the year, with a significant probability of reaching very strong intensity. In this video, we break down NASA’s latest El Niño 2026 observations, what the PACE satellite is actually detecting, why phytoplankton are declining in parts of the Pacific, how those changes can move through the marine ecosystem, and why scientists are closely watching what happens through late 2026 and into 2027
The U.S. just had its hottest month in recorded history, surpassing Dust Bowl record A long-infamous record from the 1930s has bit the dust Those who deny or dismiss U.S. climate change have hit a Waterloo moment of sorts. The nation just experienced its hottest month in more than 130 years of analysis, which breaks a record that had stood since the infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. For the 48 contiguous states, the July 2026 average of 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) came in 0.12°F (0.07°C) above the value from July 1936. This makes last month the hottest calendar month in national data going back to January 1895.
George Monbiot:Britain’s scorched fields mean a food crisis – and the government is ignoring the one measure that would help When a business makes long-term plans, they call it prudence. When a government makes long-term plans, they call it communism. Any sustained state intervention attracts the prefix “Soviet-style”, and triggers vicious attacks across the billionaire media. So governments have developed a bias against long-term thinking. This may explain why we no longer maintain strategic food reserves.
Trump administration ends NOAA support for annual Arctic Report Card
Why The U.S. Is Now At Its Worst Level of Wildfire Preparedness: Leadership Changes and Staffing Cuts Define Recent FEMA Shifts It is no exaggeration to say that Trump’s second term has been highly chaotic – especially when it comes to disaster management. And it remains difficult to keep up wA). Hamilton Confirmed as FEMA Administrator. Cameron Hamilton was sworn in on August 10 as the first permanent administrator for FEMA during Trump’s second term. Hamilton was originally fired from the role of acting administrator in 2025 after testifying to Congress that FEMA should not be eliminated. But he also held the position during a time when the administration swiftly reduced staffing, and he released a memorandum shortly before his firing that laid out short-term plans for reducing the agency’s role in recovery and disaster mitigation.
Fueling Inflation: Paper Tiger: the Failure of America’s Trillion Dollar War Machine According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States spent $21 trillion on its military between 2001 and 2024 (in constant 2024 dollars), equal to the combined military spending of the next eighteen countries. Iran barely made that list at all, spending only 2% of what the US did, and SIPRI estimated Iran’s 2025 military budget at only $7.5 billion. So how is Iran holding its own against the multi-trillion-dollar US war machine? A critical difference between the US war on Iran and previous US and allied bombing campaigns against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Gaza, is that the US and Israel have failed to destroy Iran’s air defense system and cannot fly warplanes over Iran without risking the loss of planes and pilots to enemy fire. Iran has wisely built its critical defense infrastructure underground, with arms factories, weapons stockpiles and launch sites sheltered safely beneath its impenetrable mountainous terrain.
Trump has amassed staggering wealth in ‘most openly corrupt’ presidencyDonald Trump’s use of his second presidency to grow his personal fortune has alarmed legal and ethics experts and congressional Democrats as he has reaped an “unprecedented” $2.2bn in 2025 revenues by amassing big cryptocurrency holdings, benefiting from wealthy foreign interests, expanding his Truth Social business and more, while federal oversight of his actions has waned.
D.C. Under Siege: One Year of Military OccupationOne year ago, the Trump administration brought 800 National Guard troops to occupy the streets of Washington, D.C., part of the “Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” There are now approximately 5,000 troops from 15 states deployed here, with some officially moved in and set to stay through 2029. This does not include the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies swarming our neighborhoods across the city, from ICE to the FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency, Park Police, and more. The National Guard can be found meandering around metro stations, museums, and grocery stores there for mere posture. Despite crime being down before they were deployed here. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress found the Guard deployment has not had a measurable impact on violent crime. They are not even trained in “civilian policing,” and are unable to make actual arrests.
British imperialism: The emperor has no clothes
Israel deliberately starting wildfires in southern Lebanon, firefighters say
When the AI Bubble Bursts, Who Will Be Left Holding the Bag? A new paper making a stir in the financial press spells out the dangers to which private equity-owned life insurance companies are exposed by private credit funds with large portfolios of loans to software and AI companies. It’s a complicated story that could have enormous consequences. Pranjal Drall and Andrew Granato, the report’s authors, argue that some of these insurance companies could become insolvent if these loans crash. And an unanticipated consequence of a 60-year-old rule that protects insurance company policy holders from losing all of their life insurance benefits or annuity payments could leave taxpayers holding the bag.
CIA Whistleblower Alleges Officials Manipulated COVID-19 Origins AssessmentFormer CIA analyst Ray McGovern highlights explosive testimony from a subpoenaed CIA whistleblower, who alleges that agency managers—along with then–Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines—overruled the judgments of career scientists. Drawing on direct professional experience, the whistleblower describes how intelligence can be reshaped from above when honest analysis conflicts with the preferred political narrative.