5TH CENTURY HEADLINES: The proto-Aztec bunny farmers of ancient Mexico.

THE POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER TO DECARBONATE: Soda Consumption Falls After Special Tax in California City.

The peer-reviewed research is the first to measure the impact of the penny-per-ounce tax. It found that consumption declined 21% and many residents switched to water after the tax went into effect in March 2015, according to the study published online in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study states that the results “suggest’’ that the tax lowered consumption but acknowledged other factors also could have been at play, including increased awareness about the health impact of sugary drinks.

The American Beverage Association, an industry group, said the Berkeley study has flaws and there is no indication the tax has had a measurable impact on public health. Street surveys relying on people’s recollections are “inherently unreliable,” said Brad Williams, an economist who does consulting work for the association.

Even so, the study is likely to provide ammunition to public-health officials pushing for similar levies in other parts of the country.

Nanny-staters gotta nanny state.

LOST IN SPACE: NASA Regains Contact With ‘Dead’ Solar Mission.

A signal from the long-lost spacecraft, called STEREO-B, was detected Sunday evening (Aug. 21) by NASA’s Deep Space Network, a collection of space tracking stations that follows the agency’s space missions across the solar system and beyond. NASA scientists had kept vigil for STEREO-B, making monthly searches for the probe until it phoned home Sunday at 6:57 p.m. EDT (2257 GMT).

Right now, it’s unclear how healthy the spacecraft is after drifting in space for nearly two years. NASA lost contact with it on Oct. 1, 2014, after commanding a reset from Earth. The spacecraft’s twin, STEREO-A, is still working normally.

“The STEREO Missions Operations team plans further recovery processes to assess observatory health, re-establish attitude control, and evaluate all subsystems and instruments,” NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Evidently the spacecraft became disoriented, and as a result can’t keep its solar arrays directed at the sun for long enough to recharge its battery.

Or it could be the beginning of a real-life sci-fi horror movie.

SCIENCE. Obama Energy Czar: Actually, Fracking Is Pretty Good For The Environment.

“The natural gas boom, in particular, has led to the displacement of high-carbon coal with low-carbon natural gas producing fewer emissions,” [Energy Secretary Ernest] Moniz reportedly said during the Seattle field hearing.

Since the Environmental Protection Agency’s advisory board published a study earlier this month debunking the widespread claim that fracking contaminates drinking water, environmentalists have attempted to double down — claiming that the study didn’t have enough scientific evidence in it to back up its findings. Moniz’s testimony at last week’s hearing was meant to dispel these criticisms and confirm to the public that fracking doesn’t just drastically reduce the cost of energy, it also helps the environment.

The science is settled.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Hillary hosted dinner for foundation donors — including an alleged Iran-sanctions violator.

Ed Morrissey:

Remember Walter Pinchuk? His name came up last year in an ongoing series of exposés regarding influence-peddling at the State Department through the Clinton Foundation. The steel tycoon got some face time with a “top Clinton aide” to argue on behalf of the Moscow-backed Yanukovich government in Ukraine, the Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger reported last October. The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Nicholas did a deep dive on newly released e-mails from the State Department to discover that Pinchuk didn’t just get face time with an aide while donating big bucks to the Clinton Foundation — he got Hillary Clinton to host an official State Department dinner in June 2012 for Pinchuk and other foundation donors:

While she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton hosted a dinner involving Clinton Foundation donors, including a Ukrainian businessman who had given money to the organization and who had retained a lobbyist to arrange State Department meetings.

The dinner attended by Victor Pinchuk four years ago was mentioned in a new batch of State Department emails obtained by the conservative group Citizens United through public records requests and released on Tuesday.

The Clinton campaign has tried to make hay of Donald Trump’s supposed sympathies for Vladimir Putin through the now-dismissed Paul Manafort. This shows a much more corrupt tie to Putin’s allies, and the danger is not just in regard to Russia. As Newsweek reported in April 2015, Pinchuk allegedly violated sanctions on Iran even while Hillary feted him.

THERE’S MORE: Emails Show Clinton Foundation Donor Reached Out To Hillary Clinton Before Arms Export Boost.

The email exchange about Bahrain shows the Clinton Foundation’s top executive Doug Band in 2009 asking Clinton’s State Department aide Huma Abedin to set up a meeting between Clinton and Crown Prince Salman, who had recently been named the deputy supreme commander of Bahrain’s armed forces. Band referred to Salman as a “good friend of ours.”

Abedin told Band that Clinton had initially rejected a previous request for a meeting with Salman because “she doesn’t want to commit to anything for thurs or fri until she knows how she will feel.” Soon after, though, Abedin told Band that the State Department was now offering Salman a meeting with Clinton.

Salman has directed $32 million to a Clinton Foundation program, and the Kingdom of Bahrain has donated up to $100,000 more. As Bahrain money flowed into the Clinton Foundation, State Department documents showed that between 2010 and 2012 the Clinton-led State Department approved $630 million worth of direct commercial arms sales to Salman’s military forces in Bahrain. That was a 187 percent increase from the period 2006 to 2008, and the increase came as Bahrain was violently suppressing uprisings.”

But don’t worry, because Hillary has promised to stop taking foreign money — after she’s won election.

BREAKING: American University in Kabul under attack: Gunmen storm campus packed with students as explosions are heard and victims tweet from inside ‘I’m wounded and girls cry, please help us’

Photojournalist Massoud Hossaini is live-tweeting from inside.

NO. WAY. U.S. and Europe Say Assad May Have Kept Some Chemical Weapons.

WELL, GOOD: Trump Intensifies Attacks on Clinton Foundation.

WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION: ACT Scores Drop as More Take Test.

This year, 38 percent of test takers met the benchmarks in at least three of the four subject areas tested (English, math, reading and science), which according to ACT shows that they have “strong readiness for college course work.” That’s down from 40 percent in 2015. The percentage of test takers who did not meet any of the benchmarks increased to 34 percent from 31 percent.

Many educators have worried about the lingering (and in some cases growing) gaps among different racial and ethnic groups on the ACT and also on the SAT (average scores for which won’t be released until next month).

The Wall Street Journal adds:

Sixty-four percent of 2016 high school graduates sat for the standardized test, up from 49% in 2012. The jump comes as more states—including Mississippi, Nevada and South Carolina—require districts to administer the tests, in the hope of increasing students’ awareness of college pathways.

Yet as the pool of test-takers better reflects the population of high-school students across America, and not just a self-selecting group of driven young adults for whom college is an automatic next step, it reveals significant shortcomings in their educational achievement.

Somebody should write a book about the poor performance of our K-12 schools.

CYBERSECURITY: New York Times Says Suspected Russian Hackers Targeted Moscow Bureau.

“We are constantly monitoring our systems with the latest available intelligence and tools,” Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told the newspaper. “We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised.”

Earlier on Tuesday, CNN, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. security agencies were investigating cyber breaches targeting reporters at the Times and other U.S. news organizations that were thought to have been carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence.

“Investigators so far believe that Russian intelligence is likely behind the attacks and that Russian hackers are targeting news organizations as part of a broader series of hacks that also have focused on Democratic Party organizations, the officials said,” CNN reported.

The 1980s called, and want their foreign policy back.

LAW AND DISORDER: Philippines war on drugs: ‘1,900 killed’ amid crackdown.

Ronald dela Rosa was speaking at a senate hearing into the sharp rise in deaths since Rodrigo Duterte became president.

He said police operations had killed about 750 people, but the other deaths were still being investigated.

Mr Duterte won the presidency with his hard-line policy to eradicate drugs.
He has previously urged citizens to shoot and kill drug dealers who resisted arrest, and reiterated that the killings of drug suspects were lawful if the police acted in self-defense.

He also threatened to “separate” from the UN after it called his war on drugs a crime under international law.

An equivalent number of deaths in the US would be about 6,000.

JOHN SCHINDLER: The Real Russian Mole Inside NSA.

The recent appearance on the Internet of top secret hacking tools from the National Security Agency has shined yet another unwanted spotlight on that hard-luck agency, which has been reeling for three years from Edward Snowden’s defection to Moscow after stealing more than a million classified documents from NSA. As I explained, this latest debacle was not a “hack”—rather, it’s a clear sign that the agency has a mole.

Of course, I’ve been saying that for years. It’s not exactly a secret that NSA has one or more Russian moles in its ranks—not counting Snowden. Now the mainstream media has taken notice and we have the “another Snowden” meme upon us.

James Bamford, who’s written a lot about NSA over the decades, has taken up this meme. It should be noted that Bamford is less than a reliable journalist who’s known to embellish sources when not outright fabricating them. That said, there’s no doubt that NSA has a penetration problem.

This shouldn’t be shocking news since the agency has suffered from moles since its birth in 1952. While many intelligence services have tried to steal secrets from NSA, only the Russians have been able to do so consistently. Kremlin penetration of NSA has been a constant.

Read the whole thing.

ASIA PIVOT: North Korea test fires ballistic missile from submarine.

The US Pacific Command tracked the missile over and into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, approximately 300 miles off the coast of North Korea.

This was the first time a North Korean missile entered Japan’s air defense identification zone, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

“This is a threat to Japan’s security and an unforgivable reckless act that significantly damages the peace and stability of the region,” Abe said Wednesday morning.

The launch comes amid the annual joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea, which kicked off on Monday.

In a completely unrelated story, “U.S. to deploy F-35 fighters in western Japan next year,” in one of first overseas deployments of the stealthy attack jets.

DOMINOS: Italexit Would Make Brexit Look Like a Picnic.

The political fallout from years of highly disappointing Italian economic performance is soon to be tested at the polls. At a yet-to-be-specified date in November, Italy is scheduled to hold a referendum on constitutional reform, mainly involving a proposed streamlining of its two-chamber parliament. With Prime Minister Matteo Renzi committed to resigning should he lose the referendum, the opposition has converted this referendum into a vote of no- confidence on the government.

A prolonged period of political uncertainty is the last thing that a sclerotic Italian economy now needs. Its banking system is burdened with non-performing loans that amount to around 18 percent of its outstanding loans, and its public sector debt has risen to 135 percent of GDP.

Italy’s banks, businesses, and government are saddled with debts in a currency they can’t afford to pay back and aren’t allowed to devalue.

ALL-TOO 21ST CENTURY HEADLINE: British woman, 21, killed in Australian backpackers’ hostel attack by knifeman ‘shouting Allahu Akbar’

We may never know his real motive.

HEALTH: Alcohol Companies Pushing Back Against Negative Health Warnings.

At a brewers’ conference this spring, an alcohol lobbyist fired a warning shot in what has become a multimillion-dollar global battle. Public-health officials “want to tell you that alcohol causes cancer,” Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, told the crowd. The industry, she said, was in danger of losing its “health halo.”

For decades, beer, wine and liquor producers have been helped by a notion, enshrined in a number of governments’ dietary advice, that a little alcohol can provide modest coronary and other health benefits.

Rapidly, that advice is shifting as health-policy officials around the world scrutinize their previous advice in the light of research pointing to possible cancer risks.

As far as I’m concerned, the science is settled.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Germany Debates Putting Troops on Streets to Protect Against ISIS.

IF ONLY THERE WERE SOME WAY TO KILL LARGE NUMBERS OF MOSQUITOES INEXPENSIVELY: Zika Images Show ‘Worst Brain Infections That Doctors Will Ever See’

A series of medical images published Tuesday offer the most complete picture, so far, of how the Zika virus can damage the brain of a fetus.

“The images show the worst brain infections that doctors will ever see,” says Dr. Deborah Levine, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who contributed to the study. “Zika is such a severe infection [in fetuses]. Most doctors will have never seen brains like this before.”

The images — published in the journal Radiology — are part of a special report put together by neurologists in Boston and doctors in northeastern Brazil who care for babies with Zika infections.

“Our goal is to illustrate for heath care professionals around the world what they could expect to see with a Zika infection during pregnancy,” Levine says.

Heartbreaking photos at the link.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Turkish Military Begins Major Offensive Into Syria in Fight Against ISIS.

Turkey mounted on Wednesday its largest military effort yet in the Syrian conflict, sending tanks, warplanes and special operations forces over the border in a United States-backed drive to capture an Islamic State stronghold in Syria.

The offensive on the city of Jarabulus began hours before Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was set to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara to discuss tensions raised by the failed coup in Turkey last month. The joint operation in Syria seemed intended to send a message that the countries are still cooperating in the fight against the militant group.

Turkish officials said the operation started at 4 a.m. with Turkish and United States warplanes pounding Islamic State positions in Jarabulus. The special operations troops entered Syria to clear a passage for a ground operation by Turkish-backed rebel groups, the state broadcaster TRT reported.

ISIS was Putin’s excuse for pounding his real enemy in Syria: anti-Assad rebels. There’s real danger here of Turkey using the same excuse to pound the Kurds.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Iraq Is Preparing an Armed Robot to Fight ISIS.

SADLY, THIS IS EXACTLY THE 21ST CENTURY I’VE COME TO EXPECT: A special task force has been set up to try and stop the drones from dropping off contraband to prisoners.

NUCLEAR WESSEL: Anti-Trump operatives targeted in online ‘catfishing’ scheme.

Steven Wessel is a convicted con man with a Big Apple flair, feigning connections to Ronald Reagan and pretending to be an Oxford man while bilking rich Manhattanites of $750,000. But his last scam before heading to prison this spring targeted a very different kind of mark: Republican operatives opposed to Donald Trump.

And now those operatives are wondering who put Wessel up to it.

Assuming a variety of fake online identities, including that of a female solicitor in England, Wessel gushed in emails, phone calls and Twitter messages about (made-up) extramarital affairs with the likes of the late Lee Atwater, showered marks with gift cards to the swanky Mandarin Oriental, and invited them to go pheasant-hunting in Scotland — all in an apparent attempt to glean more about the operatives and their intentions regarding Trump. That was until federal prosecutors learned of the activity and a judge revoked Wessel’s bail in April, sending him to prison to begin serving a 55-month sentence ahead of schedule.

In a campaign season marked by the mind-bending, the — until now unreported —caper of Wessel’s months-long “catfishing” of operatives Rick Wilson, Liz Mair and Cheri Jacobus ranks among more bizarre episodes. It could get more bizarre still. The targets of the scheme do not believe that Wessel, described by his own lawyer as mentally ill, was acting alone. This month Jacobus, who said she believes Wessel was working in concert with allies of Trump, renewed her efforts to get the FBI to investigate the scheme.

Politics ain’t beanbag. Read the whole thing.

SELF-DEFENSE: 91-Year-Old Man Shoots Man Trying to Rob Him in the Neck.

THIS SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD GET MORE ATTENTION IF IT INVOLVED A REPUBLICAN AND DONALD TRUMP: Dem in West Virginia governor race won’t support Clinton.

Jim Justice, a billionaire who owns multiple coal mines in the state, told a talk radio host Monday that Clinton’s environmental policies, and their effects on the coal industry, prevent him from supporting her.

“I cannot be a supporter of Hillary Clinton,” Justice said Monday on West Virginia MetroNews’s radio show “Talkline.”

“The reason I can’t be is her position on coal is diametrically, completely wrong in many, many different ways.”

Clinton attracted anger across West Virginia and other coal-dependent regions when she said in May that, under her presidency, “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

She later said she made a “misstatement” when highlighting her proposals to help economically devastated coal communities.

But she has pledged to double down on President Obama’s environmental policies, including regulations harmful to the coal industry like the Clean Power Plan.

Justice, meanwhile, sees a good future ahead for coal and criticizes people who say the industry’s decline cannot be stopped.

Why does Hillary Clinton hate the hardworking men and women of Appalachia?

PIVOT: Trump’s immigration plan: Deport ‘bad ones,’ treat ‘the rest’ like Obama does.

Donald Trump on Monday detailed how he would deal with the millions of immigrants illegally living in the United States: Enforce laws that are already on the books and continue to do what President Obama is doing, although “perhaps with a lot more energy.”

This strategy marks a sudden change for the Republican nominee, who has presented himself as a politically incorrect outsider who is not afraid to take extreme measures to combat illegal immigration, such as deporting 11 million people or constructing a massive wall along the southern border. For more than a year, Trump insisted that all illegal immigrants “have got to go” and that he would create a “deportation force” to carry out the task.

Trump struck a starkly different tone during an interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News that aired on Monday night. Trump said he would separate the country’s undocumented immigrants into two groups: The “bad ones” who would be kicked out of the country as soon as he takes office and “everybody else” who would go through the same process that the Obama Administration is currently using.

“Perhaps?”