Good morning — and happy Labor Day!
Most of the world celebrates some variation of labor day on May 1, International Workers’ Day. In the US, we honor the labor movement in September as a result of the infamous and deadly Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in May of 1886. The following year, President Grover Cleveland, fearing that Labor Day might become a day of commemoration for the massacre if it were celebrated on May 1, established America’s Labor Day on the first Monday of September.
You may have missed it while you were grilling, but the Summer From News Hell continued over the weekend:
— The militant al-Nusra Front continues to hold the Syrian side of the border with Israel, north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. . They are holding 45 UN peacekeepers captured last week as prisoners. Meanwhile, Israeli forces report that they shot down an unmanned aircraft over the area. Amy Teibel reports for Bloomberg.
— A Libyan militia overran an abandoned US embassy compound on Sunday. They took a swim in the pool, but that’s all they could do as the facility had been evacuated earlier this year. Mark Hosenball and Matt Spetalnick report for Reuters.
— Finland is threatening to shoot down Russian aircraft that have been routinely violating its airspace. It’s not alone — several other countries that border Russia report increasing incursions into their territory. Kati Pohjanpalo and Kasper Viita report for Bloomberg.
— One man died and at least 300 people were wounded in violent clashes between Pakistani security forces and anti-government demonstrators in Islamabad on Saturday. Protesters are calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation amid allegations of “industrial-scale vote-rigging in last year’s elections.” Jon Boone reports for The Guardian.
— The UN says the Islamic State is guilty of “acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale” in Iraq, including “targeted killings, forced conversions, slavery, sexual abuse, and the besieging of entire communities.” Shashank Bengali reports for the LAT that Iraqi forces, with the aid of US airpower, “broke the militant group’s nearly three-month siege of the northern town of Amerli as beleaguered residents greeted them with cheers.”
Is the American labor movement dead? –> Rich Yeselson tells Jonathan Cohn that it is not.
$90,000 –> Republicans in Florida have so far spent $2.7 million on a health insurance exchange they touted as a free market “alternative” to Obamacare. They have so far enrolled 30 people — at an average cost of $90,000 per — and are now considering selling health insurance for pets through the website.
Systemic –> Kimberly Kindy and Carol D. Leonnig report for WaPo that while federal agencies investigate whether Darren Wilson violated Michael Brown’s civil rights, “at least five other police officers and one former officer in [Ferguson’s] 53-member department have been named in civil rights lawsuits alleging the use of excessive force.” Nationally, about one in 20 officers are investigated for allegation of excessive force.
Lost and found –> The Guardian: “A lost chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, deemed too wild, subversive and insufficiently moral for the tender minds of British children almost 50 years ago, has been published for the first time.”
Here’s a great oldie for Labor Day: Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “Sixteen Tons”:
