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Following up on our last post on the link between climate change and extreme weather, a new scientific study was released that found that manmade climate change increases the probability of extreme weather patterns. The study was a joint effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S. and the Met Office in the U.K.

Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, documenting – among the many ravages of poverty – that millions of children in the richest country on earth went to bed hungry every night. His book inspired two Democratic presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, to launch a war on poverty, then estimated at more than 20 percent of the population.

NEW YORK – Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington's classic exposé The Other America blew open the reality of widespread poverty in the United States, and while it paved the way for policies that have improved the lives of millions of Americans, the problem persists today. Today, Demos and The American Prospect are co-hosting a conference and launching an interactive data visualization to examine why proven solutions to poverty are going unheeded, leaving 46.1 million Americans in poverty in 2010.

So far, as a result of the LIBOR scandal -- in which Barclays manipulated the all-important London Inter-bank Offered Rate, which governs hundreds of trillions of dollars of loans, securities and derivatives -- the bank has been fined over $450 million by regulators and its CEO and COO have resigned. A broader investigation is underway. The implications of the episode to the new financial regulatory regime currently being implemented are wide-ranging and only slowly emerging.

President Obama opened up a fissure within his own party when he called yesterday for repealing the Bush tax cuts for households making over $250,000. Other Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, have argued for a repeal that would only affect households making over $1 million.

Since 2008, working families have done everything they can to get by – changing spending habits, paying down debt, taking on 2nd (or 3rd jobs), digging into savings and retirement funds, and even cutting back on medical care – but they’re still falling behind.

The home mortgage crisis and Great Recession destroyed a generation of economic progress for African-American families. Now, reports the Washington Post, the discriminatory impact of credit scores and reports could cement the disadvantages into place for decades to come.

The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal the last in a three month trend of weak job growth. With only 80,000 jobs added in the month of June, the economy failed to generate enough work to keep up with the population growth of the labor force, much less fuel a recovery for America’s workers.  The unemployment rate for all workers held steady at 8.2 percent.

Even though it’s only the 9th of July, nearly 3,400 maximum and minimum temperature records have been tied or broken so far this month. Dozens of people have died and the lack of rainfall combined with the extreme heat is threatening the Midwest’s corn crop.