Today's News: July 20, 2018

World News
REPORT: Ecuador to hand over Assange to UK ‘in coming weeks or days’
RT – Ecuador is ready to hand over the WikiLeaks founder to the UK in “coming weeks or even days,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said citing her own sources, as prospects of his eviction from the embassy are back in the media.
“My sources tell [Julian] Assange will be handed over to Britain in the coming weeks or even days,” Simonyan wrote in a recent tweet which was reposted by WikiLeaks. “Like never before, I wish my sources were wrong,” she continued.
Knifeman ‘wounds at least 14 people in rampage on bus in Germany’
Daily Mail -Knifeman ‘wounds at least 14 people in rampage on bus in Germany’ and dumps ‘smouldering backpack’: Suspect ‘from Iran’ is overpowered and arrested as cops refuse to rule out terrorism
Israel launches massive air raid on Gaza
RT – Israeli military have started a broad air attack on Hamas position in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement. It comes after serious border clashes, in which IDF soldier came under fire from Gaza.

U.S. News
Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump… Developing
NYT – President Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording.
Seventeen dead and seven injured after duck-boat carrying 31 – including at least three children – CAPSIZES on stormy Missouri lake, as final video shows its battle to stay afloat
Daily Mail – Four more bodies have been pulled from the water where a duck boat capsized on Thursday night, bringing the total death toll from the tragedy to 17.
All of the victims were on board the Ride the Ducks amphibious vessel when a powerful storm rolled over the lake, lashing the water with 60mph winds at around 7pm.
Fourteen people survived, including the boat’s captain. Seven people were hospitalized with injuries.
Those who died range in age from one to 70. Among them was the boat’s driver.
NFL freezes policy barring players from protesting during anthem
AP – The NFL’s two-month old national anthem policy is on hold.
Hours after The Associated Press reported that Miami Dolphins players who protest on the field during the anthem could be suspended for up to four games under a team policy issued this week, the league and the players union issued a joint statement late Thursday night saying the two sides are talking things out.
Dem Congressman Accused of Covering up Sexual Harassment
Washington Free Beacon – Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan (Minn.) faces accusations that he helped cover up sexual harassment allegations against a former legislative director, Jim Swiderski.
MinnPost spoke to eight former employees in Nolan’s office; three had specific harassment allegations against Swiderski, including repeated groping. The other five former employees provided corroborating details.
Nolan allowed Swiderski to resign in the summer of 2015 and tell colleagues he was looking for new opportunities rather than make him face formal disciplinary consequences.
‘Houses are being torn to shreds’: Dramatic video shows powerful tornadoes ravaging through Iowa – entirely flattening one town which has been left in a state of emergency
Daily Mail – Amateur video posted on social media of powerful tornadoes ripping through Iowa looked like scenes right out of the movie Twister.
The dramatic images showed the roofs of homes torn to shreds as tornadoes waded through rural parts of the Hawkeye State on Thursday.
A flurry of tornadoes swept through central Iowa, flattening buildings and damaging the courthouse in Marshalltown and hitting an agricultural machinery plant in Pella as people were working.
Authorities said a hospital was evacuated and there were some injuries from the storms.
Three Top FBI Cybersecurity Officials to Retire
WSJ – Three of the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the country’s security agencies.

Economy & Business
Dollar Tumbles As Trump Blasts China, EU ‘Currency Manipulation’, Fed ‘Tightening’.
ZeroHedge – After bouncing yesterday following White House reassurances of Fed independence and PBOC’s big weakening of the Yuan fix, the dollar is tumbling again this morning… accelerating after Trump tweeted that “China, EU are manipulating their currencies,” adding that Fed “tightening now hurts all that we have done.”
US oil production hits record
The Hill – Crude oil and natural gas production hit a new record in June with the highest production ever in the U.S.
Production of crude topped 10.7 million barrels per day with production of natural gas hitting 4 million barrels per day, according to an analysis released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) Thursday.

Energy & Environment
Trump administration proposes stripping some endangered species protections
Reuters – he Trump administration on Thursday proposed changes to key provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act in a move it said would streamline the law but which conservation groups slammed as an assault on wildlife protections.
Under the proposed revisions https://bit.ly/2uxya4u, the administration would end a practice that automatically conveys the same protections for threatened species as for endangered species, and would strike language that guides officials to ignore economic impacts of how animals should be safeguarded. Threatened species are defined as those at risk of becoming endangered.
The 1970s-era Endangered Species Act is credited with bringing back from the brink of extinction species such as bald eagles, gray whales and grizzly bears, but the law has long been a source of frustration for drillers, miners and other industries. New species listings can put vast areas of territory off limits to development.
“ESA implementation was not consistent and often times very confusing to navigate,” Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Greg Sheehan said in a statement, explaining the changes.
Texas Smashes 1925 Heat Record as Power Prices Surge on Demand
Bloomberg – North Texas smashed a 93-year-old daily heat record Thursday, with the mercury climbing to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“Delay walking your dog until sunset” during the heat wave, the National Weather Service said in a message posted on Twitter. “Our infrared thermometer measured 136 degrees this afternoon on the sidewalk. These temperatures are hot enough to burn Fido’s paws.”

Science & Technology
What’s Your Ideal Caffeine Fix? An Algorithm Can Tell You
WSJ – A mathematical model the Army developed to calculate the ideal dose of caffeine to keep soldiers alert could soon benefit drowsy civilians
GOOGLE to string undersea cable from France to Virginia
AP – Google says it will string a trans-Atlantic cable from France to Virginia.
The web giant said in a statement this week that the undersea cable will land stateside in Virginia Beach. It’s expected to become operational in 2020.
Google said the project will better serve customers with an expanded network. Internet traffic across the Atlantic is among the busiest.
The cable will also support growth of Google Cloud. And it will land in relative proximity to Google’s planned data center in northern Virginia.
The project is named after innovator Henri Dunant, the first Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Red Cross.
Thousands Of Scientists Sign Pledge Against Developing Lethal A.I.
Activist Post – Thousands of leading scientists have urged their colleagues against helping governments create killer robots, making the movie The Terminator a reality.
2,400 scientists have pledged to block the development of lethal weaponry using Artificial Intelligence, The Guardian reported.

Health
Notes of nuclear? Fukushima radioactivity found in California wine
RT – Radioactive levels are increasing in wine from California’s Napa Valley, thanks to the radioactive cloud that drifted from the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Researchers from the University of Bordeaux Centre d’Études Nucléaires de Bordeaux-Gradignan (CNRS) in France tested California wine from before and after the Fukushima disaster and found there was double the amount of cesium-137 in its Cabernet Sauvignon after the 2011 tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors to leak.
The radioactive cloud released by the plant drifted all the way to California’s Napa Valley. There, trace amounts of cesium-137 made its way into the vineyard grapes.
The levels varied depending on the wine, researchers found, with Cabernet Sauvignon reds having a higher amount and rosé having the least.
Radiation from phones can affect memory?
Economic Times -Mobile phone radiation may affect memory performance in adolescents, according to a new study.
The rapid evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) goes along with an increase in exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) in our daily life.
The most relevant exposure source to the brain is the use of a mobile phone close to the head.
Drinking too much causes an imbalance of bacteria in your mouth and increases your risk of cancer
NaturalNews – Aside from contributing to bad breath, it looks like drinking alcohol can disrupt the balance of both “good” and “bad” bacteria in your mouth.
The results of a study determined that regular alcohol consumption can also increase an individual’s chance of developing cavities and gum disease, along with cancer and heart disease.
Keystone Virus: First Ever Case Detected in Humans
Dr. Axe – You’re probably familiar with mosquito-borne ailments like Zika virus and West Nile, but there’s another not so well-known virus that also poses a threat to your health. The Keystone virus was first discovered in animals and was only recently found to infect a 16-year-old boy living in Florida.
But scientists believe that this virus may have been infecting humans for years without us even realizing it. In fact, reports suggest that about 20 percent of people living in the Florida region where the virus was first detected have positive blood test results for the presence of Keystone.
Majority of Supermarket Meats Are Still Riddled With Superbugs
Mercola – For a number of years now, researchers have warned we are headed toward a post-antibiotic world — a world in which infections that used to be easily treatable become death sentences as they can no longer be touched by available drugs. As reported by NPR July 2, 2018:
Tests conducted in 2017 on nearly 5,780 antibiotic-resistant bacterial samples collected from hospitals and nursing homes revealed 1 in 4 samples contained genes known to confer drug resistance, and 221 of them, collected from 27 states, contained a particularly rare drug-resistance gene that confers a very high level of resistance.
This hardy resistance gene was found in a number of different types of infections, including pneumonia, bloodstream infections and urinary tract infections (UTIs). Disturbingly, follow-up screening showed nearly 1 in 10 asymptomatic contacts tested positive for drug-resistant bacteria carrying this rare gene, which means it can, and likely has, spread to other patients who have come into contact with an infected individual.
For a number of years now, tests have revealed meats are a source of drug-resistant bacteria, with factory farmed meats having the highest levels of contamination. This includes pork, beef and poultry. According to a 2017 report by the CDC, 22 percent of antibiotic-resistant illness in humans is linked to consumption of contaminated foods, and tests have shown ground beef from animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) is three times more likely to contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria than grass fed beef.