Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Nepal sent helicopters to the rescue after a huge flash flood swept away villages, killing at least eight people and damaging roads, bridges and power projects in areas near Tibet, authorities said. Officials said 384 tourists, including 291 from countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Malaysia were reported missing as a result of the flash flood on Wednesday. The waters were too high for helicopters to land in Nepal’s affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure in the mountainous district of Rasuwa, with a population of about 50,000, officials said. … Across the border, Tibet reported ‘major casualties’ with people missing in the neighbouring county of Gyirong after a mudslide hit a land crossing between China and Nepal, the Xinhua official news agency said.” (08/26/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/26/at-least-eight-killed-in-nepal-flash-floods-that-swept-away-villages-roads
Source: The Hill
“Data centers gain massive support — they don’t waste water!” (08/26/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/6043116-rising-august-26-2026/
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Khaled Mahmoud
“A series of crises have roiled Libya over the last month, undermining a U.S.-led initiative to resolve the country’s profound political predicament and open its markets to American investment. Violent protests over deteriorating living conditions have surged in western cities under the control of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, just as a series of drone strikes have hit energy and oil facilities in the city of Zawia, west of Tripoli. In the east near Benghazi, which is under the authority of strongman Khalifa Haftar, unknown assailants assassinated Major General Fawzi al-Mansouri, Haftar’s head of military intelligence. This chaotic stretch of events prompted the U.S. to belatedly recognize that the deteriorating security situation could undermine its peace initiative.” (08/26/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/libya-trump/
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley
“In Breaking Bad, the character Walter White explains to a major drug dealer why cheaper knockoffs of his signature Blue Sky methamphetamine are just not enough: ‘So… it’s grade-school tee-ball vs. the New York Yankees. Yours is just some tepid… off-brand, generic cola. What I’m making is classic Coke.’ This week, James Carville released his own uncut, undiluted classic product to a nation of rage addicts. Blue Sky rage. What set off Carville was telling. He and others were outraged that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner to discuss areas of common ground. Such dialogue ‘with the enemy’ is unthinkable in an ‘age of rage’, particularly for someone like Carville who previously threatened that, once Democrats are back in power, Trump supporters would be treated the same way as Nazi collaborators after World War II.” (08/26/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/08/26/blue-sky-rage-james-carville-releases-his-signature-uncut-product-to-a-nation-of-rage-addicts/
Source: SFGate
“California’s leaders love to brag about the state’s legal cannabis market being the largest in the world. Even when the legal market has shown deep problems and dysfunction, leaders could say that at least California was still No. 1. However, that no longer appears to be true. Canada’s federal government released data last week showing that its June sales totaled $517.8 million Canadian dollars, or about $374.5 million in U.S. dollars. That’s more than the $372.4 million that California sold the same month, according to the Department of Cannabis Control, meaning California has lost its superlative status. The two markets have some clear differences, notably that Canada is an entire country while California is a state. But both have similar populations; California has 39.5 million people while Canada has 41.4 million, and the differences have not stopped California’s leaders from making the international comparison in the past.” (08/26/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/california-falling-cannabis-market-22401030.php
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall
“It is wholly true that there is no such thing as a ‘free market’. All interactions between humans are intermediated by culture, the law, geography, language and so on and so on. Which is why we neoliberal types normally don’t mean that version of free. Rather, we mean a market that someone is free to enter. You’ve got a new idea, can you set up and try it out? Yes, obviously, there will be constraints, can you gain finance, planning permission, find the staff and on and on. But all of these things run along a spectrum, we can talk of markets that are freer to enter than others. And, our – most neoliberal, we confess – contention is that the freer to enter the more such markets will serve consumers.” (08/26/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/isnt-the-free-part-of-free-market-capitalism-so-lovely
Source: Foreign Policy
by Saeid Jafari
“It now appears that instead of continuing bombing campaigns, the United States is relying on economic warfare and a naval blockade to secure Tehran’s capitulation. For Washington, this would minimize the risk to its forces and the pressure on its munitions stockpiles. For Tehran, in turn, this disparity of costs represents a challenge. As a result, Iranian political and military figures have called for Iran to respond with a more offensive military doctrine. They argue that Iran should now take steps to change the situation and make the United States pay much more for keeping the blockade in place.” (08/26/26)
https://archive.is/cs9MF
Source: United Press International
“A U.S. district court has blocked Texas from banning drag performances as unconstitutional, ruling that the solution to the problem is for those who find such events offensive to just not attend. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 12 into law in June 2023 to ban ‘sexually oriented performances’ via civil penalties on businesses that host them and criminal penalties on performers. It has been debated in the courts since, with a court ruling it unconstitutional in 2023 and an appeals court in February allowing it to take effect while sending the case back to the district court for review. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee who issued the 2023 ruling, declared Senate Bill 12 an unconstitutional restriction on speech and ordered that the state be permanently enjoined from enforcing it.” (08/26/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/08/26/judge-blocks-Texas-drag-ban/1651787727211/
Source: Checks & Balances
“Yuval Levin joins Gregg Nunziata to discuss the Constitution, why institutions matter, and why AI may offer shortcuts but rob us of the process of formation.” (08/26/26)
https://chkbal.substack.com/p/congresss-core-role-is-negotiation
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“This year, 136 communities have rejected or banned the technology, and citizens are outraged, as evidenced by over two dozen states taking direct action against 193 camera installations. Mass surveillance fails the practical test because it treats every law-abiding neighbor as a perpetual suspect while government expands the network with automated police drones. Genuine public safety depends on focused, accountable law enforcement rather than dragnet data collection.” (08/26/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/why-warrantless-flock-safety-cameras
