Good morning — and happy International Coffee Day! Enjoy a nice cup while you can — experts say global warming will likely result in coffee that tastes nasty and costs a fortune.
On this date in 1990, the YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, flew for the first time. Last week, 24 years and around $70 billion later, it flew its first combat sorties over Syria. Production of the fighter, which was plagued by questions of its utility and reliability, ended in 2012.
“These were the workers at the silos” –> US-led airstrikes hit targets in four Syrian provinces overnight, but Reuters reports that “the aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base.” According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters.” ALSO: Ha’aretz has a roundup of the latest news: On Saturday, British fighters flew missions over Iraq for the first time in the current conflict. Belgium and Denmark joined the coalition, and the Al-Qaeda-aligned Al-Nusra Front vowed retaliation for the strikes that have been made so far. AND: The National’s Robin Mills writes that reports of the Islamic State’s revenues from illicit oil sales “have overestimated both volume and value of the oil, and the number has probably fallen significantly since then.” ALSO, TOO: On Sunday, Obama said that US intelligence agencies had both underestimated the strength of the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi army’s capacity to deal with it, AFP reports. AND: Kate Brannan reports for FP that this conflict is going to “strain” the Pentagon’s budget next year.
Do corporate persons have a “right” to corruption? –> Brent Kendall reports for WSJ that on Tuesday, a federal court of appeals “will consider a fresh challenge to campaign-finance rules, this time a 74-year-old law prohibiting government contractors from making political contributions tied to federal elections.”
Tense –> Police dispersed tear gas and fired shots in the air in a failed attempt to break up massive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The LAT reports that many protesters remained in the streets on Monday morning.
They’re training police to shoot first and ask questions later –> Travis Gettys reports for The Raw Story that only “two weeks before he shot a black man carrying a toy rifle at a Wal-Mart, an Ohio police officer participated in an emotionally manipulative ‘pep talk'” in which he was told to “immediately engage armed suspects with ‘speed, surprise and aggressiveness.'” Police shot David Crawford twice about a second after first spotting him.
“Ferguson remains a city on the brink, its nearly every step troubled” –> Molly Hennessy-Fisk and Matt Pearce report for the LAT that Ferguson remains a powder keg as residents await news of whether Darren Wilson — the officer who shot Michael Brown — will be indicted. Also, a police officer was shot and wounded over the weekend, but the incident appears to be unrelated to the recent strife.
And your sister’s? –> Barack Obama announced on Saturday that he would expand the My Brother’s Keeper program — the White House’s racial justice initiative targeted at boys and young men of color — but he’s faced criticism for excluding girls, according to The Nation’s Dani McClain.
Tragic –> At the NYT, Rachel Swarns reports on the accidental death of sleep-deprived low-wage worker who died taking a nap in her car between two of her three jobs at Dunkin’ Donuts.
Where your latté is classified –> WaPo’s Emily Wax-Thibodeaux looks at the busy, highly secretive Starbuck’s — called Store Number One — located at CIA headquarters, where missions get put together and the baristas are cautioned about talking to outsiders.
Investigative journalism –> John Oliver managed to blend comedy with real investigative journalism, as a recent show digging into the Miss America organization’s sketchy scholarship claims illustrates. (AP, via TPM.)
Speaking of… –> John Oliver notes that we launched drone strikes against targets in two sovereign states over the weekend and the only report of the attacks his staff could find anywhere was on Iranian television, “buried deep in your cable package…”
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