9.28.2017

Life After Maria.
One week after the Category 4 hurricane passed over Puerto Rico, the island faces severe shortages of fuel, food, and water. Power has been out across the island for nine days - the storm wiped out 80% of the existing power lines, devastating the electric grid - including at 58 of the island's 69 hospitals. Aid has begun arriving, but workers face the daunting challenge of distributing it across Puerto Rico's 3,500 square miles, with frustrated officials reporting that 3,000 shipping containers full of food, water, and medicine had been sitting in the port of San Juan since Saturday. Even worse, aid shipments are hitting bureaucratic snags - the Jones Act, a 1920's law that says goods going between American ports must use American ships and crews, is reportedly slowing delivery. President Trump may choose to temporarily waive the law, as he did during Hurricane Harvey. Even money is running out, with long lines forming at the few number of banks able to open. Check out pictures of Maria's aftermath here. 

Pitino.
Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino was suspended yesterday after the program was implicated in a broader federal corruption case focusing on the role of illicit cash in college atheletics. Louisville - referred to as 'University-6' in the FBI investigation - was already on probation over a scandal in which recruits were introduced to prostitutes during campus visits. The charges allege Adidas - who signed a $160M deal with Louisville this year - paid recruits to attend schools that wear their brand (see full Department of Justice complaint). Pitino is regarded by many as a historically great coach - only one of two coaches to take three separate schools to the Final Four (the other is arch-rival John Calipari at Kentucky). Louisville's athletic director Tom Jurich was also placed on leave, and more repercussions across the college basketball landscape can be expected as the investigation unfolds.

Bannon.
Following a proxy win in the Alabama Republican Senate primary, ex--White House adviser Steve Bannon is looking to expand his influence in state-level elections - or "repeat Alabama". Analysts predict a number of GOP primary challengers following the victory of conservative, Bannon-backed Roy Moore in Tuesday's vote - which may divert donor dollars from a mid-cycle election in which Republicans are expected to protect or expand their 52-seat majority in the Senate (see interactive map). Eight of the top ten most vulnerable Senate seats in the 2018 election are held by Democrats. Even before the results were final, Bannon - now executive chairman of Breitbart, the online news platform that clocks over 10 million unique page views each month - had backed a candidate in Pennsylvania's governor race, endorsing Scott Wagner. Bannon left little to doubt during a speech on the eve of Moore's win, saying he would go after "the establishment first, then Democrats".
 

Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner dies at 91 (More)
Diddy ($130M), Drake ($94M), Jay-Z ($42M) top Forbes' list of highest paid hip-hop artists (More)
Justin Timberlake tapped to perform at Super Bowl Halftime show (More)
 

Ford and Lyft partner on self-driving ride-sharing service (More)
Scientists develop new test for Zika and dengue viruses, could be as cheap as $1 (More)
Boeing launches $2M GoFly prizes for anyone who invents a personal flying machine (More)
 

Fed Study: US families experienced gains in real incomes between 2013-16, reversing trend from 2010-13 (More)
Nike's quarterly earnings slide 24% year over year, stock falls 2% (More)
Canadian messaging app Kik raises $100M from ICO - Initial Coin Offering (More) | What's an Initial Coin Offering? (More)
 

Trump releases details of tax plan, would cut rates for many (More)
Interpol approves State of Palestine as member over Israeli objections (More)
White House lowers 2018 refugee admissions ceiling from 70,000 to 45,000 (More)

The Guardian | Rachel Cooke. The US may be in the midst of a 'sleep-loss epidemic' - in the past 75 years, people who get less than six hours of sleep rose from 8% to nearly 50%. Your body repairs itself while you sleep, literally - the number of cancer-attacking immune cells drops by 70% after one night of less than five hours of sleep, for example. The more we learn, the more we realize that shorter sleep equals shorter lives. 
 

New York Times | Caitlin Dickerson. The American people were not at ease - tensions were rising in the 2016 presidential election, and the United States had just experienced its deadliest mass shooting ever. The effects of this friction were fully on display by the residents of a small town with a large refugee population. In Twin Falls, Idaho - a 5-year-old white American girl was the supposed victim of a sex crime committed by refugees, causing the town boiled over with fear and anxiety—but how true was the story?

Backstory: How a former Green Beret got Colin Kaepernick to go from sitting to kneeling during the National Anthem. 

A majority of Americans think we need a third major party in US politics.

It's National Banned Books Week! Here's what you should read. 

Octlantis: Octopuses are building a city off the coast of Australia. 

Random but Interesting: Technology drives corn yields up, profits go down.

US is No. 2 behind the Swiss in the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness rankings for 2017.

Infographic: Cannabis consumers prefer McDonald’s and Taco Bell.

Video: Check out an ancient underwater forest uncovered off the coast of Alabama.
 
A city in the United Arab Emirates is simulating life on Mars.

Whole 30 Compliant: Russian cannibal couple may have killed, eaten up to 30 victims. 

Historybook: HBD Confucius (551 BCE); Pompey the Great assassinated (48 BCE); Battle of Yorktown begins (1781); RIP Herman Melville (1891); RIP Louis Pasteur (1895); HBD Ed Sullivan (1901); Ted Williams last player to hit .400 (1941); RIP Miles Davis (1991); NASA announces discovery of flowing water on Mars (2015).

"DON'T PLAY WHAT'S THERE, PLAY WHAT'S NOT THERE."
-Miles Davis

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