Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes off coast of Indonesia, tsunami warning issued

Friday, August 14, 2026 5:31 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

A powerful magnitude 7.7 quake has struck off the coast of Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, damaging buildings and homes, and triggering a tsunami warning. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Trump's vaccine order would require millions of individual shots last used decades ago

Health 

Aug 14, 2026 4:16 PM EDT

By Matthew Perrone 

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health experts have been quick to condemn an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at upending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., but the biggest obstacles may be the unprecedented financial and logistical challenges it would impose on parents, health providers and drugmakers.

The Odyssey Belongs to All of Us

In many ways, Christopher Nolan’s film is not a faithful adaptation. But it takes seriously both what the text is doing and how it has been read since. Why, then, have Emily Wilson and other scholars been so dismissive? 

Sukaina Hirji August 14, 2026

Tell me, O Muse, of a complicated text. For scholars of antiquity, it has been equal parts bewildering and gratifying to see Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey stir up such charged reactions, from the MAGA meltdown over Nolan’s casting choices, to the massive box office numbers and countless social media posts analyzing and memeifying every aspect of the film, to the critical response from many scholars—the most viral of which was a pan written by my colleague and famed translator Emily Wilson in the London Review of Books.

Can Youth persuade David Gilmour to stage a live show with The Orb?

“It could be more amazing than U2’s triumph in Las Vegas. I think you could even blow that out of the water” 
By Julian Marszalek ( Prog, Classic Rock )
Published 3 days ago

In 2010, producer Youth (aka Martin Glover of Killing Joke) connected David Gilmour with The Orb, and result was the album Metallic Spheres – which was rebooted in 2023 as Metallic Spheres In Colour. Youth told Prog how it all came about, and couldn’t hide his enthusiasm over the idea of a live show, featuring the Pink Floyd guitarist.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle 2003 Full Concert (High Quality)

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle 2003

Full Concert (High Quality)

The legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle concert, filmed in Ireland on August 23, 2003, is widely considered one of the band's greatest live performances. Playing to a massive crowd of 80,000 fans, the show captures the band at the absolute peak of their By the Way album era.

The Lesson Watergate Was Supposed to Teach

DNYUZ

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. thought Nixon’s downfall would restrain presidents for generations. Instead, Watergate helped write the script for the scandals that followed.

August 13, 2026

By Jake Lundberg

PHOTO: The New York Times

Historians are generally better off interpreting the past than predicting the future. By training, we’re meant to read sources, not tea leaves. In the fall of 1973, during the middle acts of Watergate’s Shakespearean drama, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. tried to do a little bit of both. In the cover story of The Atlantic’s November issue that year, “The Runaway Presidency,” Schlesinger cast President Richard Nixon’s abuses as the result of long-standing historical trends that had empowered the chief executive, and in the process offered a hopeful prognosis for what was to come. “Watergate,” Schlesinger wrote, “is potentially the best thing to have happened to the presidency in a long time. If the trails are followed to their end, many, many years will pass before another White House staff dares take the liberties with the Constitution and the laws the Nixon White House has taken.”

Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

by Jesse Coburn
August 12, 2026, 6:00 am

Reporting Highlights

• Ready, Fire, Aim: In a rushed process exempted from normal rules, the Army hired General Dynamics, which brought on a Turkish subcontractor with little vetting, to make artillery shells.
• Money for Nothing: Despite being paid $533 million, General Dynamics did not produce a single usable shell at its new factory — and has not been held publicly accountable.
• Wages of Failure: Since the Army halted two production lines at the factory, the General Dynamics unit responsible for the debacle has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion.

A new rival is forcing Italy’s Meloni back to her far-right roots

 POLITICO 

The prime minister has toughened her rhetoric on migration as Roberto Vannacci gains ground in the polls

August 10, 2026 4:00 am CET

By Giorgio Leali and Jacopo Barigazzi

PISA, Italy — Giorgia Meloni doesn’t want to be beaten at her own game.
With an election approaching next year and a new far-right rival emerging, the Italian prime minister — whose political origins lie in Italy’s post-fascist right — is putting aside the moderate image she has built over her four years in office and hardening her tone on migration and security.

Trump dismisses military families’ concerns about grim conditions on USS Lincoln

Asked if he was worried that the ship’s deployment had gone on too long, Trump said it was “not nearly long enough.”

Aug. 14, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT / Updated Aug. 14, 2026, 11:50 AM PDT

By Julie Tsirkin, Rebecca Shabad and Mosheh Gains

President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed concerns from families of service members about the grim conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment had been overextended in the Middle East due to the Iran war.

Greenland forces Trump-linked US oil firm to delay drilling

 

US envoy had claimed Americans could be extracting crude by as early as next year

Tom Burgis

Wed 12 Aug 2026 19.00 BST

Greenland authorities have forced a US oil company connected to Donald Trump to postpone drilling wells in the Arctic territory, defying claims by the US president’s envoy that Americans could be extracting crude by next year.

Forbes: If Iran Wins The Strait Of Hormuz, The US Economy Stays Steady

Leadership Strategies

Aug 14, 2026, 07:30am EDT

By Bill Conerly

Senior Contributor

Bill Conerly connects the dots between the economy ... and business!

Summary

A new analysis explores the economic impact if Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, a scenario where Iran uses drones and missiles to assert dominance without US ground intervention. Iran would likely toll all oil transit, benefiting from major Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, rather than restricting exports solely to its own. Crucially, these tolls are not expected to significantly raise global oil prices, which may stabilize around $80 a barrel post-conflict. Instead, tolls would redistribute revenue, impacting producers' net proceeds. In response, Gulf nations would expand alternative pipeline routes within a couple of years and bolster their military capabilities to negotiate free transit. The US economy is projected to remain stable, avoiding a recession from oil prices, and could claim geopolitical successes despite potential nuclear setbacks. This highlights the long-term shift towards diversified export paths for Gulf countries.

4,000 Meters Below Sea Level, Scientists Have Found the Spectacular ‘Dark Oxygen’

What if it could solve all of our energy problems?
By Darren Orf

Published: Aug 13, 2026 

11:26 AM EDT

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: 

• Scattered across an abyssal plain known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) are polymetallic nodules that are a potato-sized prize for mining companies in search of materials needed for humanity's green energy transition.
• A study analyzing these modules reveals that these rocky lumps are capable of producing “dark oxygen” 4,000 meters below sea level where light cannot reach.
• While this discovery could upend our understanding of how life started on Earth, the study also complicates negotiations around deep-sea mining regulations as it showcases how little we really know about the ocean’s depths.

Photos: Cuba marks Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday

Fidel Castro would have turned 100 on Thursday, and his long shadow continues to loom over the island.
Al Jazeera

Published On 13 Aug 2026

Cuba has commemorated former President Fidel Castro with events including the International Book Fair, art exhibitions, concerts and gatherings of delegates from left-wing organisations across the continent.

Did Trump’s Decision to Go to War Turn a Pentagon Crisis Into a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity?

Edited by Yiannis Damellos

August 13, 2026

Donald Trump entered the war with a weapons-production problem his Pentagon already knew existed. Six months later, depleted stockpiles, an overstretched Navy and a new military-industrial buildup are turning that crisis into an extraordinary spending opportunity.

There is a question about the Iran war that Washington has so far preferred not to ask: If the United States already knew that its weapons stockpiles, shipyards and defense-industrial base were inadequate for a prolonged high-intensity conflict, why did it enter another major war without first fixing those weaknesses? The answer may be less dramatic than a conspiracy and more troubling than one. The Iran war appears to have exposed a weapons-production crisis that the Pentagon already knew existed. The war then supplied the extraordinary political justification for accelerating a military-industrial transformation that was already underway. What had been a bureaucratic problem suddenly became an emergency — and an emergency is a remarkably effective way to unlock enormous amounts of public money.

Without Solidarity, The Left Will Fail

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong was abandoned by those who could—and should—have helped her become the first DSA governor. Next time, we need to do better.

Nathan J. Robinson

filed 12 August 2026 in Politics

Francesca Hong, a State Assembly member in Wisconsin, nearly just became the Democratic nominee for governor. The 37-year-old democratic socialist, a single mom and former restaurant worker, was leading in polls, and running on a platform of universal childcare, a data center moratorium, and raising the minimum wage. If elected, Hong would have been the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to become a governor, an extraordinary step forward for the socialist movement. Hong had an impressive background and supporters were “inspired by her atypical journey into politics, her authentic vibe and an organic approach to campaigning.” As a legislator she has been involved in efforts to introduce paid family leave, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and establish an Economic Bill of Rights.

The government is recruiting tech companies to help fight its cyber battles

The massive policy shift comes as Americans reported losing $20.8 billion to cybercrime in 2025

By John Sakellariadis and Maggie Miller

08/13/2026 12:49 PM EDT

President Donald Trump is paving a legal pathway for U.S. companies to launch cyberattacks on foreign cybercriminal gangs — a significant and potentially controversial measure that would put approved tech and cybersecurity firms on the front lines of digital combat.

FLOCK Cameras rolls out new police auditing and accountability controls following surveillance concerns

By Clare Duffy
Updated 7 hr ago
New York — Law enforcement technology company Flock introduced new safety controls on Thursday, hoping to curb growing scrutiny and fears around surveillance and police misuse of its tools.

Flock’s nationwide network of automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras — mounted along public roads — capture images of passing vehicles’ plates, colors, and other characteristics to feed into a database. Police departments contract with the company to search the database, billed as a tool to help solve crimes.

US military loses 25% of its key drone fleet as Iran war shrinks stockpile: report

At least 45 MQ-9 Reapers, which cost up to $50 million each, have been shot down or crashed, for a total loss exceeding $1.3 billion

Bruce Golding

Thursday 13 August 2026 15:09 EDT

President Donald Trump's Iran war has reportedly cost the U.S. military about one-quarter of the drones that a top general recently likened to “the most valuable player” in America's weapons lineup.