Important Takeaways:
- More than 100,000 people are under evacuation orders as several blazing wildfires continue to tear through parts of California.
- Apocalyptic scenes continue in San Bernardino County where the Line Fire has already caused 6,000 residents to flee.
- Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency after several days of triple-digit temperatures stoked the wildfire that burned so violently it created its own thunderstorm-like weather systems.
- As of Monday night, the Line Fire had charred more than 23,000 acres, with more than 36,000 structures under threat.
- Firefighters have been working in steep terrain and challenging conditions in temperatures above 100 degrees, limiting their ability to control the blaze.
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Important Takeaways:
- Residents in California experienced a swarm of five earthquakes within the last 48 hours.
- A 4.4-magnitude was felt in the north around Lake County on Saturday and two more struck the area the following evening, ranked as a 2.7 and 2.8-magnitude.
- Locals in southern California also reported two more quakes on Saturday, with the largest ranking a 3.9-magnitude.
- Northern California typically sees a spate of about 50 earthquakes per month, experienced two quakes this weekend, in addition to the two felt in the southern area of the state.
- ‘2024 has had more earthquakes than any year we’ve seen since 1988,’ Caltech geophysicist Dr Lucy Jones told reporters. ‘We should expect this to continue.’
- Experts believe a major quake in Southern California – usually defined as 7.0 and up – could kill at least 1,800, leave 50,000 injured and cause more than $200 billion in damage.
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Important Takeaways:
- The story of the transfer of Iranian missiles to Russia is not just about the missiles; it is about the larger symbol.
- “We are aware of the credible information provided by allies on the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said, according to reports. The reports claim Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia. Russia has been fighting a war against Ukraine for more than two years. The Iranian ties with Russia are not new; the countries have worked together for decades on various issues, and Iran increasingly wants to partner with Russia on numerous issues.
- Iran’s Mehr News also reported on the claims. Iran’s foreign ministry has denied the claims.
- The CNN report noted that it is not clear when the missiles were delivered. “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Friday that Ukraine urgently needed more air defense systems,” CNN noted.
- Reports that Turkey will attend an upcoming Arab League meeting and that Turkey and the Syrian regime could reconcile are also part of the story. Syria’s regime is a key ally of Moscow. Iran uses Syria to threaten Israel. Iran traffics weapons via Syria to Lebanon and also bases weapons in Syria.
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Important Takeaways:
- For the better part of six decades, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett has been one of Wall Street’s most-revered investors. Overseeing a cumulative return of more than 5,650,000% in Berkshire’s Class A shares (BRK.A) since becoming CEO has earned Buffett quite the following, as well as the nickname, “Oracle of Omaha.”
- But sometimes Berkshire’s quarterly operating results, or Form 4 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, can tell a more thorough story — even if it’s an unpleasant one.
- Recently, Buffett has been a somewhat aggressive seller of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) stock. Between July 17 and Aug. 30, Berkshire’s stake in BofA has declined by about 150 million shares, equating to roughly $5.4 billion.
- This $5.4 billion in selling activity is a pretty clear warning to Wall Street and investors.
- The fact that Buffett has dumped nearly 15% of his company’s stake in Bank of America in a span of just over six weeks suggests clear worry about the U.S. economy and stock market. Like pretty much all bank stocks, BofA is cyclical.
- The other issue is it puts Berkshire Hathaway on track for its eighth consecutive quarter of selling more securities than it’s purchased.
- Collectively, Warren Buffett has overseen $131.6 billion more in securities sold than purchased between Oct 1, 2022 and June 30, 2024.
- But the bigger story is what price dislocation will attract Buffett next. Following the financial crisis, Buffett invested $5 billion into Bank of America preferred stock. This helped to shore up BofA’s balance sheet at a time when banks were Wall Street’s chopped liver. More importantly, it gave Buffett access to warrants entitling him the right to buy 700 million shares of BofA stock at $7.14 per share, which he did for Berkshire Hathaway in mid-2017.
- Periods of emotion-driven selling, while brief, have historically been Warren Buffett’s time to shine. With stocks at one of their priciest valuations in history, Buffett’s selling activity foreshadows both the peril and promise of what’s to come.
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Important Takeaways:
- Why is the church quiet? The revolutionary pastors fought and urged congregants to be involved. Why has the church lost its zeal today?
- Speaking of revolutionary pastors, back in 1776, a pastor in Woodstock, Virginia, John Peter Muhlenberg, stood up in front of his congregation and preached from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. When he got to verse 8, he talked about how there was a “time for war and a time for peace,” and he unzipped his black clerical robe to reveal an officer’s uniform in the Continental Army. He marched to the back of his church, and he called the men of his congregation to fight. They formed the 8th Virginia Brigade, which is still in active duty today.
- James Madison, one of the great founding fathers in Virginia, was running for the first Congress in 1789. While he was running for the fifth district to sit in Congress, he met with the Virginia Baptists in Richmond. They told him that he wouldn’t get their support unless he wrote a Bill of Rights for the First Amendment protecting religious Liberties. Madison did just that, and he won that seat in Congress.
- My point is that the church has always been involved in the past, so why be silent today? I think there are a few reasons.
- Some have misinterpreted the First Amendment—the idea of a separation of church and state. The First Amendment was intended to keep government out of the church, not the church out of government.
- When Thomas Jefferson wrote his letter in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut, he was interpreting the constitutional rights that churches had to be involved in politics. The separation of church and state was intended to help churches and Christians realize that the government can’t intrude, not the other way around.
- Then, in 1959, the Johnson Amendment came into law. It muzzled Pastors in the Pulpit from endorsing candidates.
- Today, you have pastors who just don’t want to be controversial. Let me tell you something: anytime you step into the arena of truth, it will sound controversial to some people. As pastors, we must continue to urge our congregations. And as Christians, you must be active, not silent, in the pews. Get out and make your voices heard and your values known.
- Be involved in the political process today. We’re called to be salt and light. Get out there, please, and be salt and light to this world.
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Important Takeaways:
- With U.S. debt now at $35.3 trillion, the cost of paying the interest on all that borrowing has soared recently and now averages out to $3 billion a day, according to Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk.
- And that includes Saturdays and Sundays, he pointed out in a note on Tuesday.
- The daily interest expense has doubled since 2020 and is up from $2 trillion about two years ago. That’s when the Federal Reserve began its campaign of aggressive rate hikes to rein in inflation.
- In the process, that made servicing U.S. debt more costly as Treasury bonds paid out higher yields. But with the Fed now poised to start cutting rates later this month, the reverse can happen.
- “If the Fed cuts interest rates by 1%-point and the entire yield curve declines by 1%-point, then daily interest expenses will decline from $3 billion per day to $2.5 billion per day,” Sløk estimated.
- Meanwhile, the federal government closes out its fiscal year at the end of this month, and the year-to-date cost of paying interest on U.S. debt was already at $1 trillion months ago.
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Important Takeaways:
- The post reads:
- Warning to all about our beloved pets & those around us!!
- My neighbor informed me that her daughter’s friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc. One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbor’s house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat.
- I’ve been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks & geese, as I was told that last bit by Rangers & police. Please keep a close eye on these animals.
- Springfield is a small town in Ohio.
- 4 years ago, they had 60k residents.
- Under Harris and Biden, 20,000 Haitian immigrants were shipped to the town.
- Now ducks and pets are disappearing
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese Defense Ministry on Monday said it would hold joint military drills with Russia sending naval and air forces for a maritime patrol of “relevant areas of the Pacific Ocean” in September.
- The move underscores the progressive alignment of the two countries, both militarily and economically, in opposition to the Western-led liberal democratic order.
- What do both countries have to gain?
- Russia is seeking China’s help in strengthening its position as a Pacific power, while Moscow has supported China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
- Increasingly, this has come to include the 180-kilometer (110-mile) wide Taiwan Strait dividing mainland China from the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan. Beijing considers the island part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force if necessary.
- Moscow and Beijing have increased military and economic cooperation in recent years, each opposing “Western hegemony” — particularly a perceived US domination of global affairs. In the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two countries declared a “no limits” partnership.
- NATO leaders claim China has become “a decisive enabler” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting Beijing to warn the US-led military bloc against “provoking confrontation.”
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Important Takeaways:
- California health officials are preparing for an uptick in valley fever cases and have issued a warning over the potentially deadly fungal infection after a surge of cases linked to a local music festival
- At least 19 people attending or working at the Lightning in a Bottle music festival have contracted valley fever, according to a statement from the California Department of Public Health.
- Eight of these have been hospitalized, the health department said, warning that additional cases may emerge among the more than 20,000 festival-goers who attended the outdoor event at Buena Vista Lake in Kern County between 22 and 27 May.
- Valley fever, also known as coccidioidomycosis or just “cocci” (pronounced “cock-see”), is a lung infection caused by breathing in the spores of a soil-dwelling fungus, Coccidioides, that lives in areas in the southwestern U.S. including Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Texas, as well as parts of Washington, Mexico and Central America.
- Activities like digging, gardening or construction that disturb soil and dust—as well as weather events like dust storms—increase the risk of disturbing and inhaling spores and of those infected, about 40% will develop symptoms of respiratory illness and pneumonia like fatigue, fever and a cough between one and three weeks after inhalation.
- While most people with valley fever recover on their own without the need for medication after several weeks or months of illness, a small number of people will develop serious or long-term lung problems, between 5% and 10% of cases, and in 1% of people the infection will spread from the lungs to other parts of the body including the skin, bones, joints and brain, which can be serious or even fatal if not treated with antifungal drugs.
- Fungal diseases kill 1.5 million each year, a death toll on par with major killers like tuberculosis and more than double that of threats like malaria, HIV and breast cancer.
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Important Takeaways:
- Both cases are men in their 70s. One man was exposed to EEE in central Middlesex County, bringing the total number of EEE cases in Massachusetts this year to three. The other man was exposed to WNV in southern Middlesex County in an area already at high risk for the disease. This is the seventh case of WNV in Massachusetts this year.
- There have been 88 EEE-positive mosquito samples in Massachusetts this year.
- There have been 299 WNV-positive mosquito samples so far this year
- EEE and WNV are transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. The last outbreak of EEE occurred in 2019-2020 and resulted in 17 human cases with seven deaths. There were six human cases of WNV and no animal cases in 2023. No animal cases of WNV have been detected so far this year.
- “Mosquito behavior starts to change in September,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown. “They will be less active during cooler temperatures. However, during periods of warmer weather, such as are being forecast for the end of next week, mosquitoes will be out and looking for their next meal.”
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