NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Chill out.

Or at least explanations you can use.

GOOD LUCK: If Supreme Court nixes NYC rent control, tenants and landlords would be better off.

IT’S MORE OF AN ERSATZ MOB THAN A REAL ONE, ITS SCREAMS AMPLIFIED TO MAKE IT SEEM BIGGER:  The nature of the mob.

I SWEAR THERE WAS ONE LIKE THIS ABOUT BIG FOOT A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO:  New ‘sighting’ of Loch Ness monster captured in ‘most exciting’ photos ever.

WHO DOES THIS SURPRISE?  Gold Star Families Raw Testimony On Biden’s Callous Indifference.

THAT’S BECAUSE WE’RE BOILING SO BADLY WE’RE FREEZING, OR SOMETHING:  Greenland’s 2022-’23 Ice Coverage Well Above 1981-2010 Average Despite ‘Global Boiling’ Rhetoric.

GOOD. AND ABOUT TIME:  Pushback: Class action discrimination lawsuit filed against Gannett newspaper.

NORMAL WAS NOT THAT NORMAL. AND IT’S GONE ANYWAY: There Is No Going Back Home.

IN OTHER NEWS, LIBERALS DON’T UNDERSTAND HISTORY:  John Mellencamp slammed by Bill Maher over claim only ‘1 or 2%’ of black people today live better than slaves.

That means, day ending in y.

Y’ALL WANTED ‘RED FLAG LAWS’? THIS IS WHAT COMES WITH ‘RED FLAG LAWS’:  Bosses are tracking — and judging — your social media posts for mental health red flags.

OF COURSE HE DID:  UK pedophile, busted as a man, arrives at sentencing as a woman.

IT’S THE LEFT, STUPID:  Blame Game Over NY’s Illegal Immigrant Crisis Escalates.

AND YET THE LIE WILL PERSIST:  No human remains found 2 years after claims of ‘mass graves’ in Canada.

THERE WERE NO WILDFIRES NOR HURRICANE LANDFALLS BEFORE WE DISCOVERED CLIMATE CHANGE (AND ADJUSTED THE HISTORICAL RECORDS):  Biden Pledges Federal Support for Hawaii and Florida, Calling Events Part of a ‘Climate Crisis’.

VERY WELL. SUBPOENA THE DOJ:  DOJ Says Subpoena of FBI Agents in Hunter Biden Probe ‘Cannot Be Enforced’.

YEAH, THE IDEA THAT VICTIMHOOD IS THE HIGHEST GOOD IS INSANE: The cult of victimhood.

REALITY BITES: Another sanctuary city Democrats says his state can’t deal with any actual migrants.

OPEN THREAD: Make it special.

(TOXIC) MASK MANDATES ARE BACK: Some schools are already reimposing face mask mandates amid the latest flurry of Mainstream Media (MSM) scare stories about new strains of COVID-19 that any minute now will have the sky falling, OMG! the sky falling, what will we all do, oh the humanity! There is indeed something to worry about but it’s not what the MSMers want us to believe, as I report today for The Epoch Times.

What the MSM is not reporting is the emergence of credible data indicating wearing mask for extended periods is anything but an unmixed blessing. Two new studies, one from South Korean and one from Germany, present tentative evidence that KN95 and KN94 face masks are linked to excessive inhalation of Toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOCs), which are in turn linked to chronic headaches, nausea, organ damage and cancer.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA gears up for return of OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample.

HOW DARE YOU REACH OUT TO PEOPLE: “Still, the best evidence that there could be something to this theory is that Leftist Black intellectuals are now worried about the possibility. I don’t know if they are responding to the same anecdata (anecdotes masquerading as data) or whether they have a legitimate reason to be worried about a surge of support for Republicans by Black voters. We’ll see.”

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM:

Newspaper chain Gannett has paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports dispatches after the technology made several major flubs in articles in at least one of its papers. https://t.co/mGqIZ1MG2r

— CNN (@CNN) August 30, 2023

COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Alcohol doesn’t make others seem more attractive, study shows.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Yes, the pandemic-era school closures were a disaster.

A brief reminder: Back in the summer of 2020, I tried to hammer home the point that preventing kids from going to school full-time and in-person during the coming school year would be a terrible idea with serious consequences for the kids and the country. School is more than just a place where younger students stay while their parents work, or a way for older students to get a certificate that helps them find better jobs. Deep economic research has shown that education really matters in helping kids grow into productive adults, including as workers in a complex, globalized economy. Those findings are seen to be as true today as when they were first identified in the 1950s. Indeed, a 2018 World Bank analysis shows the benefits increasing since 2000.

We now have a pretty good, albeit unsurprising, idea of the impact of the move to online learning and hybrid schedules. Here are some key takeaways from the Richmond Fed review:

• “Learning progress slowed substantially in the U.S. during the pandemic.” According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test of U.S. eight graders, the average score of students rose by 20 points in the 30 years before the pandemic. But between 2019 and 2022, the average score went down by 8 points, which means that they lost almost half of what they had gained before.

Of course. And teachers unions look poised to try it again: Spread of Covid impacting start of classes for some schools across U.S.

CHANGE: Giuliani loses support of billionaires Langone, Cooperman: ‘I wouldn’t give him a nickel.’