Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Highlights of this day in history include: the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy; a searing image from the Vietnam War; Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran, ending years of exile; actor Clark Gable born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Breakfast News
Barclays and Credit Suisse to pay biggest ever fines for dark pool trading
Barclays and Credit Suisse are paying more than $150m (£105m) to settle charges that they misled investors who used their dark pool trading platforms, according to reports.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general are expected to announce the settlement on Monday. The two banks are paying the biggest ever fines for operating dark pools, which critics say allowed some market players to exploit investors.
According to Reuters, Barclays will pay a $70m fine split evenly between the SEC and New York state, admit it violated securities laws and agree to install an independent monitor to ensure that its dark pool “Barclays LX” operates properly in the future.
WHO holds emergency meeting to advise on response to Zika virus
An emergency World Health Organisation committee will meet on Monday to advise on the international response to the Zika virus, as the number of infected people continues to soar.
The committee will decide whether to designate the mosquito-borne virus – which has been linked to serious birth defects – a global emergency meriting immediate coordinated international action, amid criticism that it has been too slow to act.
On Thursday, the WHO’s director general, Margaret Chan said the virus was spreading explosively. The latest figures from Colombia, released over the weekend, offered support for her analysis, showing that there are 20,297 confirmed cases of the disease in the South American country, including 2,116 pregnant women, making it the second most affected country after Brazil.
Undercover film shows how lawyers could ease flow of ‘grey money’ into U
New York lawyers have been secretly filmed advising how an African minister could use “grey money” to buy up a Manhattan brownstone, a private jet and a luxury yacht without US authorities – or his impoverished citizens back home – ever knowing.
An undercover activist posing as an adviser to an African mining minister filmed encounters with 13 US law firms, offering a rare glimpse into how US lawyers could possibly act to facilitate the flow of dirty money into the country despite Barack Obama repeatedly demanding a crackdown on global corruption.
Almost all the lawyers offered suggestions as to how the minister could move “grey money” and “suspect funds” into the US while ensuring his identity was never disclosed. None of them made suggestions that were illegal.
Winds topping 115 mph hit Southern California; 1 killed when tree falls on car
A powerful storm moved into Southern California on Sunday, bringing unusually strong winds of up to 70 mph to Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Officials warned that the storm is forecast to bring heavy rain and a risk of flash floods, especially in recently burned areas that could see mud flow down hillsides.
Strong winds were expected to cause flight problems at Los Angeles International Airport, and forecasters said there was enough instability aloft that there could be a 36% chance of thunderstorms in parts of the L.A. area. Waterspouts and even weak tornadoes are possible.
“The winds may well turn out to be the defining feature of this system,” the National Weather Service said Sunday morning.
An Unwanted Circus Descends, and an Oregon Town Strives to Stay Kind
— Remote Western towns, in midwinter’s grip, definitely have some romance to them. But this one has become a circus tent: A giddy but tense crush of humanity has descended here in rural eastern Oregon, benefiting businesses and swamping them, filling bars, and making motel rooms unattainable amid a bizarre tide of guns, police, reporters and ideologues quoting (at length) from the United States Constitution.
That’s Burns. [..]
The place is just crazily overrun. Every motel room within 70 miles is taken. Barstools are packed at the Central Pastime Tavern, with journalists and armed antigovernment protesters elbow to elbow, tucking down I.P.A.s and perhaps — for braver souls — the bull testicles on the bar menu. Hard to know, but there are probably also undercover F.B.I. agents now and then playing pool in the back, trying to appear like locals in boots and jeans under the mounted bighorn sheep and buffalo heads.
50,000 years ago, humans ate a 500-pound bird into extinction
Roughly 50,000 years ago, an Australian bird species went extinct, not because of competition for space or resources but because its eggs were simply too delicious.
According to a study published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, humans helped wipe out the 500-pound species of flightless bird called Genyornis newtoni.
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder figured this out by looking at eggshell fragments in 10 regions of Australia, which they discovered had been partially charred.
The charred shell fragments were usually found in “a tight cluster” near other fragments that weren’t burnt at all, meaning it’s unlikely something like a wildfire burned the eggs.
Breakfast Blogs
The “Bernie Bros” Narrative: a Cheap Campaign Tactic Masquerading as Journalism and Social Activism Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
No, the Hillary Email Story Will Never, Ever Go Away Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
The Leak Hypocrisy of the Hillary Shadow Cabinet emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
Turning Texas blue?: 3 trends could undo the 20 years of Republican rule Texas has endured since the days of Ann Richards Mary Beth Rogers, Salon
Monkey See, Monkey Do, But Judge Says Monkey Gets No Copyright Mike Masnick, Techdirt
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