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Arabica coffee futures surged more than 9% to $2.094 per pound, the highest since October 2014, on Monday after forecasts call for more cold temperatures in Brazil, the world's top grower. Weather models show that another cold snap is imminent for Brazil and likely to produce crop-killing frost across southern Minas Gerais through central Sao Paulo, east-central, and south Parana, from Wednesday to Friday, Maxar meteorologist Donald Keeney told Bloomberg. #Coffee rallying 10% more today after gaining near 20% last week due to damage to trees in Brazil and expectation of more cold in coming days. Graph by @RuralClima #Sugar...

He used to be commander in chief, but former President Obama says the "top dog" in his household is definitely his wife. "I'm generally the brunt of every joke in my household," Obama said of life with wife Michelle and the couple's two adult daughters, in a Thursday interview on Dax Shepard and Monica Padman's Spotify podcast, "Armchair Expert." "Michelle, she's the top dog because they're scared of her," he quipped of the former first lady and his daughters, Malia, 22, and Sasha, 20. "Michelle always says that you have to have at least one parent who the kids think...

To understand what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's select committee investigation of the Capitol Hill events of Jan. 6 is all about, a good place to begin is with the sentencing hearing last week of Paul Hodgkins. A crane operator from Tampa, Florida, Hodgkins, 38, pleaded guilty to a single count of obstructing a joint session of Congress called to confirm Joe Biden as the next president. Hodgkins entered the Senate chamber carrying a Trump 2020 flag. He committed no assault, no act of destruction, no act of violence. Yet, he was sentenced to eight months in prison by U.S. Judge...

Last week, acting U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert dismissed a visa-fraud case against Chinese national Juan Tang, whose trial was set to begin July 26 in Sacramento. According to the Sacramento Bee, Talbert declined comment and assistant U.S. Attorney Heiko Coppola “gave no reason for seeking the dismissal.” The surprise move had nothing to do with any new evidence in the case, and everything to do with anti-Trump politics. As the Bee reported, the case of Juan Tang, who had been conducting research at UC Davis, “is one of dozens initiated by the Trump Administration through its ‘China Initiative’ in...

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kicked two Republicans off the House investigation of the January 6 riot at the Capitol, the Democrats and their media flaks went into high gear to obfuscate Pelosi’s transparently partisan motive to ensure the investigation reaches the preordained conclusion: that Donald Trump incited an “insurrection” aimed at undoing the election results. In response to Pelosi’s obvious attempt to get the fix in, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California pulled all the Republicans from the commission (except for Rhino Liz Cheney). As...

Voters in the nation’s capital made history by electing a convicted murderer who is still behind bars for his crime to an Advisory Neighborhood Commission, or ANC, which counsels the local government on neighborhood issues such as garbage collection, police patrols, liquor licenses, zoning, and parking. Joel Caston, 44, has been imprisoned for 26 years following a first-degree murder conviction in the August 14, 1994 killing of 18-year-old Rafiq Washington. Victim and shooter knew each other and there was some unspecified animus between them that cannot easily be divined from online court records. Caston, who was elected June 15,...

The Federal Reserve chair, always on the look-out for signs of inflation, might want to drop by Manhattan's Upper East Side, where a $200 plate of french fries stretches the definition of haute cuisine. The restaurant Serendipity 3 already claims world records for the most expensive burger ($295) and ice cream sundae ($1,000), so if the question is, "You want fries with that?" its answer is a resounding yes. Guinness World Records certified the feat. As of July 13, the fries are officially the most expensive on earth. "Serendipity is really a happy place," said Creative Director and Chef Joe...

Simone Biles pulled out of the finals of the gymnastics team event at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday, dealing a massive blow to Team USA’s chances of securing the gold medal as they face a resurgent Russian team. Biles left the competition floor after completing her first apparatus on the vault, the New York Times reported. Biles, who was supposed to do a Yurchenko with two-and-half twists on the vault, pulled out only after one-and-a-half twist and then stumbled on the landing. It’s unclear if the gymnast, widely considered the greatest of all time, was injured during the event.

The Oakland Police department said the incident is under investigation, adding there is a $2,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Boxer, 80, served as a U.S. senator for California from 1993 through 2017. Earlier today former Senator Barbara Boxer was assaulted in the Jack London Square neighborhood of Oakland. The assailant pushed her in the back, stole her cell phone and jumped in a waiting car. She is thankful that she was not seriously injured." — Barbara Boxer (@BarbaraBoxer) July 26, 2021

I have never bought the conspiracy theories that COVID-19 was a diabolical political plot to undermine the country. But what is apparent with each passing week is that the virus has been the springboard for the left's agenda to transform America in a way that Sen. Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore or Rachel Maddow could have never imagined.Without COVID-19, President Joe Biden would never have been elected, of course. So, for the left, the virus defeated former President Donald Trump. COVID-19 is now the gateway to the left's utopian agenda of multi-trillion-dollar climate policies, hyper-regulation of the economy, the rebirth of...

If you’re average, congratulations! Most of us are mediocre in most of our endeavors, somewhere in the large dome region of the Bell Curve, a graph of a normal distribution of values for a given variable. We might be relieved by this essential equality since happiness and satisfaction are more elusive towards the narrower, right end of the Bell Curve where the exceptional loiter. At the left-end, government mollycoddles the underachievers, providing an ever-expanding safety net. At various venues I’ve seen giant billboards touting “equality.” Indeed, when it comes to such unalienable rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of...

Naomi Osaka's bid to become the first Japanese player ever to win tennis Olympic gold came to a abrupt halt as she was beaten in straight sets by Marketa Vondrousova in the last-16. The Games was Osaka's first tournament since withdrawing from both the French Open and Wimbledon, citing her struggles with depression and anxiety. She had lit the cauldron in the opening ceremony last week and was Japan's poster girl of their home Olympics. Osaka, the world No 2 and a four-time Grand Slam champion, was considered the tennis tournament favourite once Wimbledon champion and world No 1 Ash...

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America deserves better than its current military leadership. On July 22, Major General Patrick Donahoe, the Commanding General of Fort Benning, reported from his official Twitter account that he was seeing a “surge” in ICU visits among young soldiers due to Covid. He reported that he would mandate the vaccine if he had the power to do so. Snip Treating healthy people like biohazards over an illness that has killed two dozen personnel in a force of millions is insane. Snip My interaction with the General serves as a microcosm of the American military’s cultural rot. Here we have a...

NEW ALEXANDRIA, Pennsylvania -- The scent of funnel cakes, grilled hot dogs and an ever-so-faint whiff of diesel fuel fill the air. The odd combination somehow works, adding to the excitement and anticipation as thousands of families and gearheads fill the stands surrounding the track of the local Lions Club Demolition Derby here in Westmoreland County. From the clothing to the massive, oversized tires that serve as makeshift bumpers to protect the people in the stands from an errant jalopy, nearly everything and everyone is draped in red, white and blue. Before you form a misguided stereotype, there is a...

As a compromise in the debate over Constitutional Carry, the Indiana legislature passed a firearms reform bill that eliminated the fee for an Indiana lifetime carry permit. The fee for the 5-year permit was eliminated in 2019. That law went into effect on 1 July 2020. From the Crime Prevention Research Center, Indiana had 967,061 permits as of July 1, 2020. At that time, 18.73% of the adult population had an Indiana carry permit. On 1 July of 2020, when the five-year permit fee was eliminated, about 8,000 applications for permits were received. From indystar.com:State Police received 2,259 handgun permit...

Is it wrong that I'm rooting for the U.S. Women's National Team to lose, and humiliatingly so, this Olympics? Of course it's not wrong. The USWNT, led by America's favorite histrionic Megan Rapinoe, protested against racism and discrimination by taking the knee before their first Olympic match. Though the stadium was empty (certainly nothing new to the USWNT), the attending "reporters" revived each other with smelling salts to swoon and gape at the unparalleled fortitude exhibited by these privileged virtue-signalers in what was dubbed a "social justice reckoning". I find soccer thoroughly unwatchable and, if forced to choose, I'd rather...

It’s all a strategic Alinsky move once you connect the dots. Earlier today New York City Mayor De Blasio announced mandated vaccinations for all 340,000 city employees. Hours later Joe Biden announced mandatory vaccinations for all 115,000 front-line employees of The Veterans Affairs department. Immediately thereafter, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced all state employees and healthcare providers will be forced to vaccinate. None of these events are disconnected. Keep in mind just a few days ago the Federal CDC announced all U.S. healthcare providers must switch to new rapid response tests for COVID-19. The reasoning? The current PCR test does...

Why do so many Americans resist being vaccinated against COVID? Or is that what they are actually resisting? When I was a child, I was vaccinated against a number of deadly diseases. As an adult, I had my own child vaccinated. On the whole, vaccinations have saved countless lives and prevented epidemics that would otherwise have ravaged our nation and others. Yet today, with a pandemic that has gripped the entire world with fears of a plague of (what they call) biblical proportions, there is more resistance to vaccination than ever before. In reaction, there are calls for "vaccine mandates,"...

This past weekend, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd added another column to the myriad irrational and hysterical pieces about the "existential threat" climate change allegedly poses to human life. As I do after almost every piece I read on the internet, I read comments submitted by readers. One provided me with an epiphany. It was a comment submitted by New York Times reader "Sophia" of Bangor, Maine: "I have one child, a daughter, who told me age 8 that she would never have a child because of global warming. She's now 34 and has never changed her mind. So...