Oil and gas production at three platforms operated by Total in the North Sea shut down early on Monday for 24 hours as workers of the Unite union began, as planned, their 24-hour strike—the third 24-hour stoppage and the fifth strike in a month, due to a dispute with the company over pay and shifts.

A judge on Monday ordered Michigan’s state health director to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter in two deaths linked to Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area, the highest ranking official to stand trial as a result of the tainted water scandal. Nick Lyon is accused of failing to issue a timely alert to the public about the outbreak. State Judge David Goggins said deaths likely could have been prevented if the outbreak had been publicly known and keeping the public in the dark was “corrupt.” When the judge announced the decision, a woman in the gallery said, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Diversification is a broadly accepted investment strategy designed to hedge against risk. If you invest all your money in one company or one industry, you flirt with disaster during an economic downturn. Does the US have a diverse economy? Our new map reveals that the answer is both yes and no.

As previewed yesterday, on Monday Venezuela officially slashed five zeros from prices and its currency as part of what has been dubbed one of the greatest currency devaluations in history which slashed the value of the official bolivar by 95%, an overhaul that President Nicolas Maduro said would tame hyperinflation, and which everyone else called the latest desperate failed socialist policy that will push the chaotic country deeper into crisis and unleash even higher hyperinflation (impossible as that may sound: as a reminder the collapse of Venezuela's currency recently surpassed the Weimar republic).

More proof has emerged confirming that China has erected expansive ‘re-education centers’ for up to a million or more ethnic Uighurs in what a recent United Nations statement said resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”. The minority Turkic speaking ethno-religious group concentrated in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang has found itself under increased persecution and oversight by Chinese authorities of late as their mostly Sunni Islamic identity and separatist politics have resulted in historic tensions with the Communist government. 

The landmark study by University College London (UCL), based on 11,000 children tracked from their births in 2000, found their time on social media could be detracting from reading and homework, with a potential knock-on effect on their literacy. Professor Yvonne Kelly, director of UCL's  International Centre for Lifecourse Studies, said the findings suggested a link between “the amount of time young people spend on social media and their levels of literacy”.

A woman in Georgia is facing what some observers are calling “the longest sentence” ever imposed on someone convicted of leaking sensitive federal data to news outlets. Reality Winner — an ex-NSA contract employee — is the young woman looking at spending 10 years in federal prison, should the judge impose the harshest possible penalty at her sentencing hearing scheduled for August 23.

South African authorities have reportedly started seizing white-owned land after negotiations on buying out the properties stalled. The first seizures are targeting game farms in the Northern province of Limpopo. The government had tried to buy the lands owned by Akkerland Boerdery Ventures for one-tenth of the land’s value, reports City Press, a Johannesburg-based news outlet. The company, which has been running a 3200 hectare (32 square kilometers) game farm, reportedly asked for 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land while the government was ready to offer them just 20 million rand.

Apple has removed around 25,000 apps from its service after the Chinese government criticized the company for not doing enough to monitor content. As the company makes further commitments to China amidst the ongoing trade war, the stakes are getting higher.

ON AUGUST 13TH, FACEBOOK shut down the English language page of TeleSUR, blocking access for roughly half a million followers of the leftist media network until it was abruptly reinstated two days later. Facebook has provided three different explanations for the temporary disappearing, all contradicting one another, and not a single one making sense.

William Blum shares with us his correspondence with Washington Post presstitute Michael Birnbaum. As you can tell from Birnbaum’s replies, he comes across as either very stupid or as a CIA asset.

In an interesting turn of events, The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has issued a ruling which will greatly increase the amount of marijuana that can be grown legally for research purposes. In the same report, the DEA announced that they will be attempting to reduce the production of problematic opioid pharmaceuticals. The amount of marijuana that can be grown previously had been roughly 1,000 pounds, but will be increasing to 5,400 pounds in 2019.

A 12-person jury in Texas found Shafeeq Sheikh, a former physician at Baylor College of Medicine, guilty of raping a heavily sedated patient. The jury recommended that Sheikh receive no prison time, and state law compelled the judge to comply.

So much for my powers of prediction. After a Florida newspaper was hit with a request for contempt charges for publishing parts of a document a local school board tried (but failed) to redact, I suggested the court would side with the paper and say a few strong words about proper redaction techniques and the First Amendment. I could not be more wrong. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said the newspaper flouted her order that portions of a school district report about Cruz should remain shielded from the public. In the future, she declared, she will consider listing exactly what the newspaper can and cannot print.

In the land of the free, practicing democracy is often futile and even more often, highly corrupt. Illustrating the corrupt nature of this process is a case out of Georgia in which a sheriff with a history of alleged criminal activity is accused of harassing, intimidating, and even arresting innocent people who challenge his authority. On August 10, Robert Hawes, a former deputy with the Clayton County sheriff’s department, announced that he would be running against the incumbent Sheriff Victor Hill. Days later police would be in his home, kidnapping his wife.

Asia Argento, an Italian actress and director at the forefront of the #MeToo campaign that brought down producer Harvey Weinstein over sexual assault, herself reportedly assaulted an underage actor, and paid him to stay silent. Court documents reportedly seen by the New York Times outline allegations by Jimmy Bennet, actor and rock musician, who says Argento sexually assaulted him when he was 17 and she was 37. The age of consent in California, where the alleged assault took place, is 18.

Body scanners will be used on the Los Angeles subway to screen passengers for explosives and weapons, the local transport authority has announced.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Saturday that he “fully admit[s]” Twitter employees share a largely left-leaning bias after facing accusations that conservatives are discriminated against on the social media platform.

According to Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reportingreading Infowars will turn you into a white supremacist. It’s a racist recruiting tool, they insist.  Case in point: Andrew Anglin, the former hippie vegan who now edits The Daily Stormer. His previous effort was named Total Fascism.  Anglin’s 2015 interview [aired on the Stormfront site] shows that Jones’ brand of conspiracy peddling also helps usher new recruits into the white supremacist movement. Seeing the whole world as a massive conspiracy is a foundational part of the white nationalist mindset.

Chaos and confusion erupted across Venezuela, and most stores were shuttered on Saturday, after president Nicolas Maduro announced that the government would enact a massive currency devaluation, implement a new minimum wage, hike taxes, and also raise gasoline prices for most citizens even as the country struggles with the greatest hyperinflation on record, surpassing even that of the Weimar Republic.