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. Everyone’s welcome here, no special handshake required. Just check your meta at the door.
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
Breakfast News
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Iran ‘shoots down Israeli drone’ near Natanz nuclear site
Iran says it has shot down an Israeli drone near the Natanz nuclear enrichment site.
The Revolutionary Guards said they fired the missile as the stealth drone approached the area, 300km (185 miles) south of the capital Tehran.
The statement did not say when the drone was brought down, nor how the Guards knew it was Israeli.
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ISIS Tightens Its Grip With Seizure of Air Base in Syria
Extremist fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria seized a military base in northern Syria on Sunday from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, further solidifying control inside their self-declared Islamic state spanning the Syria-Iraq border.
The fall of the Tabqa air base followed the group’s seizing of two other Syrian military bases and gave it effective control of Raqqa Province, which abuts the Turkish border and whose capital city, Raqqa, has long served as the group’s de facto headquarters.
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Thailand king endorses coup leader Prayuth as PM
The Thai general who led May’s coup, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has been officially appointed prime minister following endorsement by the king.
Gen Prayuth received the written royal command in a ceremony at Bangkok’s army headquarters on Monday morning.
He plans to name his cabinet and seek royal approval for the line-up by October, according to reports.
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Michael Brown’s family seeks peace as they prepare for funeral today
On the eve of Michael Brown’s funeral Monday, the teen’s parents saw their son for the first time since his death and tried to prepare for a burial that will test their strength.
At noon Sunday, about 100 family members and friends gathered for a private viewing of Brown’s body at Austin A. Layne Mortuary. They gazed at Brown, who lay with his arms crossed in a gold and black casket. He wore a blue-and-white-checked shirt, a navy blue sweater vest and a neatly tied red-and-blue-striped bow tie. He showed no sign of the gunshots that ended his life Aug. 9.
Brown’s parents each spent time alone with his body. Then other people came in.
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Ex-Governor’s Corruption Trial Has Lurid Slideshow
The corruption trial of a former governor of an American state who was once a serious White House contender is captivating the nation with tales of excess and lurid details of a broken marriage.
Bob and Maureen McDonnell are on trial in Virginia’s capital, Richmond, facing 14 charges, including accepting bribes and obstructing an investigation. If convicted, both could face up to twenty years in prison.
The government asserted that the ex-governor and his wife took $120,000 in loans and $50,000 in gifts from Richmond businessman Jonnnie Williams.
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James Foley describes captivity in letter to family
The parents of American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped and later slain by Islamic State militants, released a letter they say Foley wrote while being held hostage.
Although his captors confiscated all of Foley’s writings, he asked a fellow hostage about to be freed to memorize a message to his family.
“Eighteen of us have been held together in one cell.” Foley said, according to the letter dictated by the hostage after being released. “We are so grateful when anyone is freed; but of course, yearn for our own freedom. We try to encourage each other and share strength.”
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Docs urge delayed school start times for teens
Let them sleep!
That’s the message from the nation’s largest pediatrician group, which, in a new policy statement, says delaying the start of high school and middle school classes to 8:30 a.m. or later is “an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss” and the “epidemic” of delayed, insufficient, and erratic sleep patterns among the nation’s teens.
Multiple factors, “including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands,” negatively impact teens’ ability to get enough sleep, and pushing back school start times is key to helping them achieve optimal levels of sleep – 8½ to 9½ hours a night, says the American Academy of Pediatrics statement, released Monday and published online in Pediatrics.
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Hundreds of Methane Plumes Spotted on Sea Floor
Plumes of bubbles streaming from hundreds of newly discovered sea-floor seeps between North Carolina and Massachusetts are likely to contain methane and could be adding as much as 90 tonnes of the planet-warming gas to the atmosphere or overlying waters each year, research published Sunday in Nature Geoscience suggests.
An estimated two-thirds of the emissions emanate from sediments at depths where methane-rich ices may be decomposing due to warming waters along the ocean bottom, the researchers say. Effects of these plumes on climate and ocean chemistry are not yet clear, but could extend well beyond the plumes themselves.
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Heart Association: E-cigs could help some quitters but are a ‘Trojan horse of nicotine’
The American Heart Association, an old foe of the tobacco industry, has taken an official position in the debate over electronic cigarettes.
It’s not a fan.
In a policy statement issued Sunday, the organization called for stricter regulation of the battery operated devices which contain nicotine, but not tobacco, and produce vapor instead of smoke.
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
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Breakfast Tunes
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