Sources confirm that Apple is working on a car, Twitter suspends Alex Jones for inciting violence, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo goes too far in an anti-Trump speech.




The Midterm Elections Are Weird - Between the Scenes



The 2018 midterms are more about Trump’s presidency than the candidates themselves.

The Trump administration is set to roll back the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's efforts to slow global warming, the Clean Power Plan that restricts greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

A plan to be announced Tuesday would give states broad authority to determine how to restrict carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The Environmental Protect Agency announced late Monday that acting administrator Andrew Wheeler planned to brief the news media by telephone Tuesday on what the administration is calling the "Affordable Clean Energy" rule — greenhouse guidelines for states to set performance standards for existing coal-fired power plants.

President Donald Trump is expected to promote the new plan at an appearance in West Virginia on Tuesday.

The plan is also expected to let states relax pollution rules for power plants that need upgrades, according to a summary of the plan and several people familiar with the full proposal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the plan publicly.

Combined with a planned rollback of car-mileage standards, the plan represents a significant retreat from Obama-era efforts to fight climate change and would stall an Obama-era push to shift away from coal and toward less-polluting energy sources such as natural gas, wind and solar power. Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry.


More: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/trump-ready-ease-rules-coal-fired-power-plants-57289002

Patches of frost around moon’s north and south poles could provide a source of water for humans, say astronomers


Astronomers have found patches of frost scattered around the moon’s north and south poles which could one day provide a source of water for human visitors.

The scientists spotted the telltale signature of frozen water in infrared measurements taken by Nasa’s moon mineralogy mapper, an instrument that flew on India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon a decade ago.

The freshly-analysed data show that water ice lurks on the ground in a number of spots near the moon’s polar regions that are permanently in shade and so sheltered from the heat of the sun’s rays.

Most of the ice was found near the moon’s south pole around a cluster of craters named after scientists and explorers, including Haworth, Shoemaker, Sverdrup and Shackleton. In the north, the patches of ice appeared to be more isolated, according to Shuai Li at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in Honolulu.

Follow-up measurements of the ice patches found that they tended to form where the surface temperature never crept above -163C, but temperature alone was not enough to guarantee frozen water: only 3.5% of the shadowy areas the scientists checked for water revealed notable signs of ice.


More: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/20/ice-found-on-moon-surface

Oil spill disaster reduced biodiversity in sites closest to spill, report finds, as White House rolls back conservation measures

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may have had a lasting impact upon even the smallest organisms in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have found – amid warnings that the oceans around America are also under fresh assault as a result of environmental policies under Donald Trump.

Lingering oil residues have altered the basic building blocks of life in the ocean by reducing biodiversity in sites closest to the spill, which occurred when a BP drilling rig exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing about 4m barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Researchers took sediment samples in 2014 from shipwrecks scattered up to 150km (93 miles) from the spill site to study how microbial communities on the wrecks have changed. On two shipwrecks close to the source of the outpouring of oil – a German U-Boat and a wooden 19th-century sailing vessel – scientists saw a visible oil residue.

“At the sites closest to the spill, biodiversity was flattened,” said Leila Hamdan, a microbial ecologist at the University of Southern Mississippi and lead author of the study. “There were fewer types of microbes. This is a cold, dark environment and anything you put down there will be longer lasting than oil on a beach in Florida. It’s premature to imagine that all the effects of the spill are over and remediated.”


More: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/28/bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-report



Patches of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill are seen from an underwater vantage in the Gulf of Mexico on 7 June 2010. Photograph: Rich Matthews/AP

Winds blowing off the Atlantic coast could provide four times more electricity each year than the region currently uses, according to a new report.

“Wind Power to Spare: The Enormous Energy Potential of Atlantic Offshore Wind,” released Thursday by Environment New Jersey Research & Policy Center, said 12 of the 14 coastal states — including New Jersey — have offshore wind potential that exceeds their current electricity consumption.

On Monday, the Jersey Renews coalition and the Business Network for Off-Shore Wind will co-sponsor the second annual Time For Turbines off-shore wind forum in Atlantic City.

It will be held at the Atlantic County Utility Authority wastewater plant, which is powered by a combination of land-based windmills and a solar array.

All of the state’s off-shore wind developers, Board of Public Utilities President Joseph Fiordaliso, state Senate President Steve Sweeney, and other interested parties from labor and government will be there, organizers said.

The Environment New Jersey Research & Policy Center report also found that current wind leases off the New Jersey coast through Orsted and U.S. Wind for New Jersey have a combined capacity of 4,173 MW and will be able to power more than 1.5 million homes.


More: https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/wind-energy-potential-dwarfs-today-s-electricity-use-report-says/article_eaac06fa-51d6-549d-8b4d-04d85adf38d6.html



Offshore wind turbines like the ones in the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island may soon be gracing the water off Atlantic City. The state is moving forward with plans to quickly solicit 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind power.

Donald Trump is waging a trade war that hurts a lot of American workers. Maybe he would understand that if our heavy-handed documentaries about the global trading system were more informative.

The White House revokes former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, the Catholic Church faces another molestation bombshell, and a dance-off breaks out in an airport.




Deregulation Station - For-Profit Colleges & Trump’s Liberation of Corporations



The Trump administration rolls back rules protecting students from for-profit colleges, and Ronny Chieng takes a trip to Deregulation Station.

Comedian Michelle Wolf's Netflix talk show,"The Break With Michelle Wolf," will not be returning to the streaming service for a second season.

Deadline reported on Friday that Wolf's Netflix series had been canceled only about three months after its first episode aired. The show's last episode was released on July 29.

Wolf has not yet made a statement about her show's cancellation.

The "Daily Show" star gained widespread notoriety earlier this year after giving a speech during the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner in which she repeatedly slammed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful," Wolf said at the dinner. "But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Like, maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies."

Many reporters and public figures found that her comedy bit crossed a line, but Wolf has continually defended herself.


More: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/402443-netflix-cancels-comedian-michelle-wolfs-show

Monologue: Omarosa Week



Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including a new wave of reality show drama in the White House.




Preet Bharara: Defending Institutions



Former US Attorney Preet Bharara joins Bill to discuss whether the Republican Party is enabling a traitorous president and the importance of defending America's institutions.




Catholic Church Cover-Up



Bill and his Real Time panelists – Gov. Jen Granholm, Charlie Sykes, Jonathan Swan, and Adam Conover – discuss the the Catholic Church's latest child abuse scandal.




New Rule: Avatar America



In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that the phony personas people adopt in public are vastly different than the weirdness they crave.




SCOTUS Term Limits, Wave of Women, Wildfires | Overtime



Bill and his Real Time panelists – Preet Bharara, Gov. Jen Granholm, Charlie Sykes, Jonathan Swan, and Adam Conover – answer viewer questions after the show.

3D Guns: What Are They and How Do They Work?



Seth takes a moment to share a commercial he recently saw that explains what 3D guns are and how they work.




Fred Judges a Book by Its Cover: Clock Dance by Anne Tyler



Fred Armisen guesses the plot of Anne Tyler's Clock Dance using only the book's cover.




Seth's Favorite Jokes of the Week: Paul Manafort's Trial, Mike Pence's Speech



Seth's favorite jokes from the week of August 13.