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This evening's music features jazz trumpeter, songwriter and bandleader Sy Oliver. Enjoy!

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”

-- Euripides

News and Opinion

Gosh, the fact that Hillary Clinton's minions in the DNC stole a primary election for her is not nearly as sexy as Vladimir Putin.

If Vladimir Putin shows you incontrovertible evidence of US corruption, did it really happen?

Western corporate media is so pathetic.

US believes Russian hackers are behind Democratic National Committee leak

The emerging consensus within the Obama administration is that Russian hackers successfully infiltrated the data networks of the Democratic National Committee, the Guardian has learned, although there is less certainty that the Russian government is definitively responsible for the attack.

A senior administration official said indications in the code used to execute the data breach points to Russian culprits. That assessment matches the preliminary conclusions from a recent series of cybersecurity firms that have analyzed the hack.

The official, who was not cleared to discuss an attack that has roiled US politics and relations with Moscow, could not “unequivocally” attribute the attack to a “Russian state actor”.

But the operating theory and animating belief inside the administration is that the attack, which led to tens thousands of internal DNC emails spilling onto the internet ahead of the Democrats’ presidential nominating convention, enraging Bernie Sanders supporters by suggesting bias against him among party staff and leading to the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was Russian in origin.

Neither the White House nor the office of the director of national intelligence would confirm a New York Times article late Tuesday reporting that US intelligence agencies consider Vladimir Putin’s government to be responsible for the attack on the DNC. Queries to the FBI, which Barack Obama has now placed in charge of responding to cyber threats, were not immediately returned.

The Daily Beast reported on Monday that the FBI believes the Russian government to be behind the DNC hack. The FBI has confirmed that it is investigating the breach

RT has a bit of fun with the idea of Putin as kingmaker.

Trump: Siberian Candidate?

Russia says accusations it hacked the Democrats are paranoia

It didn't take long for the blame to fall on Russian intelligence after Wikileaks released 20,000 damning emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee's computer system.

The campaign for Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton quickly pointed fingers at Russia for the email scandal that broke Friday, just three days before the Democratic convention kicked off in Philadelphia. But Russian officials have firmly denied any involvement and are even accusing American politicians of blaming Russia as a campaign ploy. ...

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov [...] commented on the emails on Tuesday, saying the claims were rooted in political paranoia. He said politicians were simply using what he called "the Russia card."

"We're still witnessing attempts to use the Russian issue — in a paranoid way — during the US election campaign," he said, the Associated Press reported. "There's nothing new here, it's a sort of traditional pastime of theirs. We think it's not good for bilateral ties but we realize that we have to go through this unfavorable period."

Not much of an interview with Assange in this piece, it's almost all propaganda. See if you can spot the fnords:

WATCH: No proof Russians used WikiLeaks in #DNCLeak, Julian Assange tells @RichardEngel on @NBCNightlyNews. https://t.co/UJCBe4fT9l

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) July 25, 2016

If Russian Intelligence Did Hack the DNC, the NSA Would Know, Snowden Says

Glenn Greenwald told WNYC on Monday, while there may never be conclusive evidence that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Russian intelligence operatives to extract the trove of embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks, it would hardly be shocking if that was what happened.

“Governments do spy on each other and do try to influence events in other countries,” Glenn noted. “Certainly the U.S. government has a very long and successful history of doing exactly that.” ...

One expert in the field, who is well aware of the evidence-gathering capabilities of the U.S. government, is Edward Snowden, the former Central Intelligence Agency technician and National Security Agency whistleblower who exposed the extent of mass surveillance and has been given temporary asylum in Russia.

“If Russia hacked the #DNC, they should be condemned for it,” Snowden wrote on Twitter on Monday, with a link to a 2015 report on the U.S. government’s response to the hacking of Sony Pictures. In that case, he noted, “the FBI presented evidence” for its conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the hacking and subsequent release of internal emails. (The FBI is now investigating the breach of the DNC’s network, which officials told the Daily Beast they first made the committee aware of in April.)

What’s more, Snowden added, the NSA has tools that should make it possible to trace the source of the hack. Even though the Director of National Intelligence usually opposes making such evidence public, he argued, this is a case in which the agency should do so, if only to discourage future attacks.

Obama Directive Details Response to Future Cyberattacks

Claiming that there is a “revolution” ongoing in the nature of computer-based threats, the White House today issued their formal directive on US responses to future cyberattacks, laying out a color-coded system to rate the scale of the threat, and assigning the FBI to take charge in responding to such incidents. ...

Conspicuously absent from the directive is any detail on how the US would actually come by determinations of the culprits in such incidents, which is a serious problem because the administration has repeatedly blamed foreign nations for cyber attacks without offering any evidence, oftentimes just going after whoever would be a convenient scapegoat.

This is doubly important because just last month, NATO announced that they intend to respond to certain cyber attacks with military force, having declared “cyberspace” a formal military zone in which the alliance operates.

The Democrats appear particularly keen to lay out higher profile retaliation for cyberattacks, right now, as WikiLeaks recently leaked a number of embarrassing documents from the DNC. Officials have blamed Russia for the release, but as usual offer little evidence. Russia has denied the allegations.

The North Koreans are beating the west in the battle to create fun, amusing and memorable propaganda:

North Korea accuses Seoul of 'cunning plot' to release snakes over border

North Korean border patrol guards have been ordered to capture snakes apparently released by South Korea to wreak havoc in its northern neighbour, sources have claimed.

Pyongyang is said to have told the military that Seoul’s spy agency is behind the unseasonably high number of snakes in Ryanggang province, which borders China.

“Earlier this month, border patrol units received orders to capture snakes before they crawl over the banks of the Yalu River,” said a source in the province.

He added that the core message from Pyongyang was that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service was using the reptiles “as part of a ‘cunning scheme’ to challenge our unity”. Multiple sources in Ryanggang province are said to have corroborated these claims.

£1bn of weapons flowing from Europe to Middle East

Eastern European countries have approved the discreet sale of more than €1bn of weapons in the past four years to Middle Eastern countries that are known to ship arms to Syria, an investigation has found.

Thousands of assault rifles such as AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns are being routed through a new arms pipeline from the Balkans to the Arabian peninsula and countries bordering Syria.

The suspicion is that much of the weaponry is being sent into Syria, fuelling the five-year civil war, according to a team of reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Arms export data, UN reports, plane tracking, and weapons contracts examined during a year-long investigation reveal how the munitions were sent east from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania.

Eastern and central European weapons and ammunition, identified from videos and photos posted on social media, are now being used by western-backed Free Syrian Army units, but are also in the hands of fighters from Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sham, the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State, factions fighting for the Syrian president, Bashar-al-Assad, and by Sunni forces in Yemen.

Markings on some of the ammunition identifying the origin and date of manufacture reveal significant quantities have come off production lines as recently as 2015.

Turkey: a post-coup era?

Turkish Special Forces Hunt Coup Plotters Across Nation

Nearly two weeks after the failed military coup d’etat in Turkey, active military operations are still ongoing in several places around the country, as special forces look to hunt down more suspected coup plotters to add to some 60,000 people already caught up in the purge.

Having arrested 360 generals already for involvement in the coup, Turkey’s military is described as a fractured mess, with some very highly ranked officials having been arrested for participating in the coup. The purge is expected to put Erdogan loyalists in most of the key positions in power.

Leadership crisis notwithstanding, Turkey still has some significant operations ongoing, with over 1,000 troops described as participating in an operation around the coastal resort of Marmaris, where they are trying to track down 11 suspected plotters.

Amnesty: Turkey Must Halt Torture of Detainees

Following previous reports that they have credible evidence of Turkey torturing post-coup detainees, Amnesty International is doubling down on their concerns, calling for an immediate halt to all mistreatment of what is now in excess of 10,000 people arrested over the coup attempt. ...

Turkish prisons have a spotty human rights record in the first place, and since the coup a lot of the detainees aren’t even being held in formal prisons, but rather are in makeshift “detention centers” set up after the failed coup, with images repeatedly showing large numbers of bound men sitting on the floor of a single room surrounded by guards.

Lawyers have reported seeing detainees brought in to by interrogated by prosecutors already covered in blood, with reports that a number of detainees have been raped in custody as part of the increasingly violent effort to get people to talk.

Canada may become the first country to ditch the F-35 fighter jet

If newly-obtained documents are any indication, Canada may become the first country to scrap its order for the American F-35 fighter jet, the most expensive weapons program ever. Letters sent to the big industry players are just further evidence that the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to pull the trigger on a whole new open competition to pick Canada's next generation of fighter jet.

That competition will likely favour an out-of-the-box jet, over the expensive F-35.

Industry sources confirmed that the government set up meetings with big-name players in the aerospace industry in recent weeks to figure out its next steps in buying a new fighter jet — this, even though it's technically already on the hook to buy 65 of the F-35 Lightning II jets, manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

Those face-to-face meetings took place with representatives from two US companies: Boeing, Lockheed Martin itself; Sweden's Saab; the French Dassault; and the European multinational consortium Eurofighter. All of them make fighters that, while less advanced than the stealthy F-35, are vastly cheaper.

The US is expanding its refugee program for Central Americans fleeing violence

The United States government has promised an expansion of its programs designed to help families and children fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The plans — outlined in a statement released by the Department of State on Tuesday — include stepping up an existing project to process Central American applications for asylum within their countries of origin.

They also highlight a new deal in which Costa Rica has agreed to act as a kind of holding nation for potential refugees who could also be channeled to other countries as well as the United States.

"We are committed to protecting Central Americans at risk and expanding resettlement opportunities in the region," the statement said. "Today's actions will not solve this challenge alone, but are steps in the right direction." ...

It promises temporary shelter for applicants who are considered too potentially vulnerable to remain in their own countries, while their cases are evaluated in greater detail.

Carlos Maldonado, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in the Costa Rican capital San José that many of the refugees will end up in the United States, but some will head to countries such as Canada, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay.

Thousands of Black Lives Matter Activists Protest During the DNC

The sick six cops who brutally murdered Freddie Gray are have been processed by the injustice system and are now free to return to their busy job of occupying minority neighborhoods and brutalizing their citizens with the customary impunity.

Way to go injustice system! Equality under the law, my ass.

Charges Dropped in Freddie Gray Case Against Baltimore Officers

Prosecutors in Baltimore on Wednesday dropped all remaining charges against three city police officers awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray, ending one of the most closely watched — and unsuccessful — police prosecutions in the nation.

The decision brought a stunning end to a sweeping prosecution that began with criminal charges against six police officers last May, announced with the city still in the grips of violent protest after the death of Mr. Gray, who was found unresponsive and not breathing after he rode unsecured in a police transport wagon after his arrest on a bright morning in April 2015. Mr. Gray later died of a spinal cord injury.

On Wednesday, a defiant state’s attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby — released from the gag order that had kept her from commenting on the cases — fiercely defended the prosecutions. “We do not believe Freddie Gray killed himself,” she said. ...

Ms. Mosby said the decision to drop the charges had been “agonizing.” But she said had had no choice given the realities of the case — including the lack of an independent investigatory agency to help prosecutors and the officers’ right to opt for bench trials. The judge, Barry G. Williams Jr., made clear he did not agree with prosecutors’s theory of the case.
Continue reading the main story

“Without real substantive reforms to the current criminal justice system, we could try this case 100 times and cases just like it, and we would still end up with the same result,” Ms. Mosby said.

'It's a matter of survival': the black Americans fighting for gun rights

‘Dallas is hot right now,” self-defence activist Eric Randall tells me with a shake of his head. It’s well over 100F in the carpark outside the strip mall pizzeria where we’re talking, and the asphalt is rippling with haze. But Randall is not talking about the weather. He’s talking about his neighbourhood. ...

The increasing friction between the black community, the police, and rightwing or white supremacist activists who’ve been drawn to Dallas in the wake of the killings has been noticeable, he says.

Randall’s group may be in a radical minority, but he is part of a much larger body of African American opinion which is pro-firearms and pro-second amendment. Not everyone in that category shares Randall’s broader political views, but many see guns as a way of being safe in a country that is dangerous for black citizens. ...

Randall is prepared to go beyond megaphones and placards. When he started his armed self-defence group in Denver, Brothers Against Racist Cops (Barc), it was a response to an incident in which he says he was racially profiled and abused in front of his son by an officer who pulled him over. ... When he moved back to Dallas, the city of his birth, he established a new Barc chapter. The emphasis is first on training, and then on neighbourhood patrols.

Randall’s group is only possible because of the second amendment, and Texas’s permissive gun laws. They have long allowed open carry for long guns, and as of this year people with concealed carry permits can open-carry holstered handguns.

When asked about liberals who argue that the central problem in gun violence is the availability of guns, Randall shoots back. “I agree. The problem is guns, bullets come from guns. But the main problem is who is holding the damn gun. No one had a problem with people killing us until we started arming ourselves.”

Who Should Bernie Voters Support Now? Robert Reich vs. Chris Hedges on Tackling the Neoliberal Order

Big Dog Clinton demonstrates that 1%ers tend to think alike:

Bill Clinton Draws Flak for 'Trumpish' Comments on American Muslims

Former President Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Tuesday night, largely focused on humanizing his wife, is drawing criticism for its characterization of American Muslims.

"If you're a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want you," Clinton said toward the end of his address.

But as Peter Beinart, contributing editor for The Atlantic, wrote late Tuesday night: "The problem is in the assumption. American Muslims should be viewed exactly the same way other Americans are. If they commit crimes, then they should be prosecuted, just like other Americans. But they should not have to prove that they 'love America and freedom' and 'hate terror' to 'stay here.' Their value as Americans is inherent, not instrumental. Their role as Americans is not to 'help us win' the 'war on terror.'"

Beinart continued, "Whether Clinton meant to or not, he lapsed into Trumpism: the implication that Muslims are a class apart, deserving of special scrutiny and surveillance, guilty of terrorist sympathies until proven innocent."

Bill Clinton using Muslims only as pawns in the war on terror is disgusting https://t.co/boskqWLXiK

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) July 27, 2016

And Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)'s Chicago branch, wrote on Facebook:

I appreciate Bill Clinton affirming that Muslims oppose terrorism. We do. We do. Thank you. But I do dream of a day when Muslims are mentioned outside of the context of terrorism and in the contexts that we live in daily. For example in a discussion about health care. Muslims are 1% of the US population and 10% of its doctors. That is a 1000% overrepresentation. If one had to "stereotype" Muslims based on lop-sided data, it would be that "Muslims are doctors."

DNC Ignores Muslims’ Objections, Gives Michael Bloomberg Starring Role at Convention

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be a primetime speaker at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday,  despite his support and defense of a discredited New York Police Department program that systematically spied on American Muslims in their neighborhoods and places of worship during his tenure.

In interviews with The Intercept, Muslim attendees decried Bloomberg’s starring role at the convention, but numerous Democratic officials and lawmakers refused to condemn Bloomberg’s policies towards Muslims and expressed their delight at his appearance.

The Clinton campaign reached out to Bloomberg about a speaking role several weeks ago but the announcement didn’t become public until late last week, after the former mayor and billionaire businessman publicly endorsed the Democratic nominee. ...

The program was hardly a minor feature of Bloomberg’s tenure. The Associated Press revealed in 2011 that under Bloomberg, the NYPD had spied on every mosque within 100 miles of New York City and sent informants to infiltrate Muslim student organizations, charities, and businesses.

Sanders’ Delegates Stage Walkout Protest on Hillary Clinton Nomination

It had been in the planning for weeks and it was executed as flawlessly as the DNC’s own strategy to steal the election for Hillary Clinton. As Clinton’s nomination to serve as the presidential candidate was confirmed at the Democratic National Convention yesterday, hundreds of Senator Bernie Sanders’ delegates staged a walkout protest, leaving large swaths of the seats in the convention center empty.

Waving signs that read “The Revolution Continues,” “A Future to Believe In,” “No TPP,” and chanting “This is what democracy looks like,” the marchers peacefully left the convention center and rallied outside. Numerous protestors wore tape or material over their mouths to protest how the DNC’s actions had illegally silenced their voices

Several hundred Sanders’ supporters also took over part of the media tent for the convention for a period of time. Shyla Nelson, a Sanders’ delegate from Vermont, explained what was behind the action to a reporter for The Young Turks.

Nelson is affiliated with Election Justice USA (EJUSA), which has been tracking voter suppression and election fraud in the Democratic primaries in states like New York, Arizona and California. According to a 96-page report released by the group, they have evidence suggesting that more than 500,000 voter registrations were “tampered with or improperly handled.” The report also notes:

“The widespread and illegal efforts to manipulate the election results in the 2016 Democratic Party primaries are not the only visible indications of election fraud. EJUSA has also identified irregular patterns in precinct-level Democratic vote tallies which are strongly suggestive of electronic voting machine tampering. In all eleven primaries where discrepancies between exit polling and official results exceeded the margin of error, the discrepancy favored Hillary Clinton.”

Green Party Candidate Jill Stein Draws Crowd of Hundreds After DNC Walkout

“The Real Revolution Is Down the Street, to Your Left” — The Green Party Rallies at the Democratic Convention

For many Bernie Sanders supporters, the move to the Green Party’s Jill Stein was easily laid out. On Monday afternoon, hours before their candidate took the Democratic convention stage to reiterate his support for Hillary Clinton to the boos of some of his own delegates, a young man with a loudspeaker directed protesters to a park down the road from the Wells Fargo Center.

“The real revolution is down the street, to your left,” he told them, as others handed out “Jill 2016” posters to people still wearing their “Bernie 2016” shirts. ...

Stein, who took the stage in a sleeveless top and green scarf, introduced by Cornel West and hailed by a roaring crowd chanting “Jill not Hill,” welcomed Sanders supporters to her party, calling the move a “marriage made in heaven.” ...

“To all those delegates who are witnessing the demise of a movement inside the Democratic Party: There’s a new movement being born outside the Democratic Party.” ...

Stein, whose progressive platform has much in common with Sanders’s — from the focus on accessible education to the rejection of big money in politics — has marketed herself as the only possible continuation of his promises ever since he endorsed Clinton. And for many who were driven by Sanders’s vision more than by his party affiliation, switching to the Green Party felt more honest than supporting Clinton. ...

“When everybody asks you, Are you scared of Donald Trump? I am actually scared of Donald Trump. But you know what, I’m scared of Hillary Clinton too,” anti-war activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin said in a speech endorsing Stein. “We can’t let our fear overcome us. Our fear has to turn to anger, and our anger has to turn into the determination to change the whole damn system.”

Did Sanders Foreclose a Larger Revolt at the DNC?

Bernie Sanders Delegates Prepare to Confront Obama About TPP, Symbol of Corporate Control

For Bernie Sanders supporters — and some Trump supporters — the TPP has become shorthand for corporate control of the political process. Hillary Clinton was a late convert — and not particularly sincere at that.

So that’s why you saw Sanders delegates waving their signs around — and that’s why some of them plan to make their opposition known Wednesday night when the pact’s foremost proponent, President Barack Obama, speaks on the convention floor.

It’s not just a matter of principle either. Although Obama is leaving office, opponents of the pact worry that the next five months offer him an opportunity to seek a final vote on the agreement, including during the crucial lame-duck session after the election, but before inauguration.

Utah Sanders delegate Cheryl Butler told The Intercept that she anticipates the same raucous chants and sign-waving against the TPP that took place on the DNC floor on Monday. ...

Early Tuesday morning, during Oregon’s state party meeting, delegates broke out into chants of “No TPP!” during a speech by its Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who supports the agreement.

Jewish Democrats express doubts that US is ready for atheist president

Jewish Democrats have widely condemned a party official’s email that sought to question Bernie Sanders’ religious faith. They insist that the issue is irrelevant to how they cast their vote, though they are doubtful as to whether the US is ready to elect its first atheist president.

Emails released by WikiLeaks show that Brad Marshall, chief financial officer of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), considered raising the question of whether Sanders is an atheist in the hope of costing him votes in the primary contest against Hillary Clinton. ...

Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, said on Tuesday: “The email was a disgrace for calling into question Bernie Sanders’ religious practices. There is no place in the DNC for a culture in which any staff can invoke the religious practices or lack of in any presidential candidate. If I was running the DNC, no one would say that because I’d kill them. I mean that figuratively.” ...

David Bernstein, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said: “There are many highly committed Jews who are atheists including some of the founders of the state of Israel. Being Jewish is not just part of a religion but part of a people. I don’t concern myself with the theological views of Jewish people and atheism is certainly no novelty.”

US environmentalists take aim at second TransCanada pipeline

Environmentalists are again taking aim at the company that proposed the Keystone XL pipeline this time for another of its projects they fear would send hundreds of supertankers laden with crude oil down the Atlantic coast to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

TransCanada is behind the Energy East pipeline project, a 4,600km pipeline, or nearly 3,000 miles, that would carry crude oil from tar sands in Western Canada to the East Coast, where it would then be shipped to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. When completed, the project would carry 1.1m barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada.

Plans call for converting a natural gas line for part of the route and then building a new pipeline in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick to connect to the existing pipeline.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and other environmental groups are concerned about potential spills of tar sands diluted bitumen along the route in Canada that goes over thousands of rivers, streams and lakes. They also warned a spill along the east coast could prove devastating to communities that depend on tourism and fisheries and are not prepared to handle an event of this kind.

The groups held a conference call Tuesday with the media, in releasing a report , “Tar Sands in the Atlantic Ocean: Transcanada’s Proposed Energy East Pipeline,” that lays out their case against the project.

Scorching Global Temps Astound Climate Scientists

As wildfire rages in California, flooding affects millions in India and China, and eggs are fried on sidewalks in Iraq, scientists say global climate catastrophe is surpassing predictions

Record global heat in the first half of 2016 has caught climate scientists off-guard, reports Thompson Reuters Foundation.

"What concerns me most is that we didn't anticipate these temperature jumps," David Carlson, director of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate research program, told Thompson Reuters Foundation late Monday. "We predicted moderate warmth for 2016, but nothing like the temperature rises we've seen."

"Massive temperature hikes, but also extreme events like floodings, have become the new normal," Carlson added. "The ice melt rates recorded in the first half of 2016, for example—we don't usually see those until later in the year."

"Since late 2011," Meteorologist Eric Holthaus explained, "Los Angeles County has missed out on about three years' worth of rain. Simply put: Extreme weather and climate conditions have helped produce this fire's extreme behavior." ...

Meanwhile, in India's northeast, Reuters reported Tuesday that over 1.2 million people "have been hit by floods which have submerged hundreds of villages, inundated large swathes of farmland and damaged roads, bridges and telecommunications services, local authorities said on Tuesday." ...

And in Iraq, temperatures last week reached such unprecedented heights that a chef literally fried an egg on the sidewalk.

Colombia says the Zika epidemic is over — but birth defects have yet to peak

Colombia is expecting a rise in the number of babies born with microcephaly because their mothers contracted the Zika virus, but the health authorities insist the epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease is now over.

Deputy Health Minister Fernando Ruiz told a press conference on Monday that the virus has infected 100,000 people so far in the South American nation.

He said that 17,700 of these are pregnant women who require special monitoring because of the link between Zika and a developmental condition in newborns known as microcephaly and characterized by abnormally small heads.

"We think that the number of microcephaly births will reach a peak in August and September," Ruiz said, adding that the rise in the number of cases was already evident in July.

The Zika epidemic, and its link to microcephaly, were first noted in Brazil in October. Since then the virus has spread throughout the continent and beyond.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Will Bernie’s Supporters Stay Home on Election Day? We Asked Them.

She's With Them–But We've Got Us: A Movement Bigger Than Sanders

Did Russian Intelligence Hack the DNC Servers?

Fact-Checking That “Trump & Putin” Thing

Take Away the President's Blank Check for War

How to Arm a ‘Volatile’ Planet

Flooding in India affects 1.6m people and submerges national park

Remember the ice bucket challenge? It just funded an ALS breakthrough

A Little Night Music

Sy Oliver — Gran'ma Plays The Numbers

Sy Oliver - Rhythm Is Our Business

Sy Oliver and His Orchestra - Bump

Billie Holiday, Sy Oliver - Now Or Never

Sy Oliver — Lammar's Boogie

Sy Oliver - Blues, Just Blues

Ella Fitzgerald, Sy Oliver - Basin Street Blues

Louis Armstrong w/Sy Oliver - Skokiaan