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UN Secretary-General Guterres Warns: ‘Ocean Is Overflowing’ (Maria)
The author writes, “UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday that rising sea levels will ‘soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale with no lifeboat to take us back to safety,’ highlighting the dire threat the crisis poses to Pacific Island nations. Guterres’ forecast of a ‘worldwide catastrophe’ coincides with the release of reports from the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. … [He] said the world must act on a global SOS — ‘Save our Seas’ — call and address the looming devastation rising seas could bring.”
More Than 200 Bush, McCain, Romney Alums Endorse Harris for President, Criticize Trump (DonkeyHotey)
The author writes, “More than 200 Republicans who previously worked for either former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., or Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in an open letter Monday obtained exclusively by USA TODAY. The letter from alums of the three Republican presidential nominees prior to former President Donald Trump comes on the heels of a Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago that showcased Republican detractors of the GOP nominee. At least five former aides to former President George H.W. Bush also signed the letter, which has 238 signatures in all.”
What We Know About Ukraine’s Army of Robot Dogs (Sean)
From Forbes: “Ukraine is now using robotic dogs on the battlefield, the first known combat deployment of such machines. The robots were supplied by a British company and are not autonomous; they are operated by remote control, a walking version of the ubiquitous aerial drones. … The robots explore inside buildings, trenches and dense woodland where drones cannot go. They are used to locate booby traps and to locate Russian forces, but do not actually have sniffing sensors.”
Republican Donors, Do You Know Where Your Money Goes? (Dana)
The author writes, “We long ago blew past any meaningful controls on political giving in American elections. Now we should focus on the rules governing political spending, which are in equally terrible shape. For that we can blame the Trump campaign and the federal government’s feeble enforcement efforts. Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump’s campaign spending reports would quickly conclude they’re a governance nightmare. There is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president himself) can’t possibly know how it was spent.”
Extreme Heat Poses New Challenge for Aid Agencies in Gaza (Laura)
From Context: “In Gaza, the sky is full of menace. As well as the missiles that rain down on schools and shelters, the brutal rays of the sun have made the summer unbearable for those struggling to survive in a ravaged landscape of ruins and rubble. Samaher al-Daour sometimes wishes she had been killed in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war rather than have to watch her son, who lost a leg during the conflict, endure the unbearable heat.”
Inside Boeing’s Factory Lapses That Led to the Alaska Airlines Fuselage Blowout (Reader Steve)
The authors write, “The near-catastrophic midair blowout of a door-sized fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 in January was caused by two distinct manufacturing errors by different crews on successive days last fall in Boeing’s assembly plant in Renton, Washington. The first manufacturing lapse occurred within a four-hour window early Sept. 18. On the evening of the next day, in the space of about an hour, the second error was made by a different crew of mechanics, untrained to work on that fuselage panel, known as a door plug, according to federal investigative and internal Boeing records. Boeing’s quality control system failed to catch the faulty work performed within those two windows.”
Rewriting History: Ice Age Hunters Used Planted Pikes, Not Throwing Spears, To Bring Down Mammoths (Reader Jim)
From SciTechDaily: “How did early humans manage to hunt megafauna around 13,000 years ago using sharpened rocks? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or could they have scavenged wounded animals, using Clovis points as versatile tools for harvesting meat and bones for food and resources? UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above. Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator’s body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.”
