Links 8/16/2025 | naked capitalism

5 minutes read

Archaeologists in Mexico Discover Long-Lost City Inhabited by Maya Rebels Who Resisted the Spanish Conquest Smithsonian (Chuck L)

Exposure to some common Pfas changes gene activity, new study finds Guardian (resilc)

Scientists may have found the tiny DNA switch that made us human ScienceDaily (Kevin W). Lordie. They can’t bring themselves to say “mutation” in the headline?

Something Inside Your Gut Could Be Like a Natural Ozempic ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

Today’s Weed Is 5x Stronger and the Mental Health Risks Are Rising SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis Lancet Global Health (resilc). Sanctions kill!

COVID-19/Pandemics

🔬New study shows SARS-CoV-2 causes direct damage to heart cell mitochondria – even months after recovery – helping potentially explain Long COVID heart symptoms like chest pain, palpitations & fatigue.

Been waiting to have time to read this paper. Let’s break it down. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/GFDi8xI20s

— Jack | amatica health (@JackHadfield14) August 15, 2025

Note that a pre-Omicron study, IIRC based on VA data, found the odds of getting Long Covid rose to 39% after 3 infections

Based on a meta-analysis of 429 studies, an estimated 36% of all people infected with SARS-CoV-2 develop Long COVID.

The condition affects the entire body, with fatigue, respiratory issues, and psychological symptoms being the most prevalent clusters.https://t.co/8cnA9AbDxR pic.twitter.com/KEusbQqFPm

— David Lingenfelter, PhD (@dlingenfelter) August 15, 2025

Climate/Environment

Clear-Cutting Triggers 18x More Floods, for 40+ Years SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Glacier Outburst Floods: Mendenhall Glacier StoryMaps (Chuck L)

Lithuania declares agriculture emergency after crops damaged by rain Reuters

How heatwaves are ruining British roads Telegraph

MIDDLE EAST HEAT WAVE
Another record day in EGYPT

Hellish day in Asswan:
min 34.3 max 48.6
Hottest day and hottest night ever recorded in August and 0.1C from Egyptian August hottest night (it can fall tomorrow)

Min. 29.2 Port Said- Hottest night in history pic.twitter.com/BLykUJxLNU

— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) August 15, 2025

Thousands Flee Wildfires Across Greece as Heat Withers Crops Insurance Journal

Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates near collapse as water crisis deepens Shafqq

The Amazon Rainforest Approaches a Point of No Return Yale 360

Climate models reveal how human activity may be locking the Southwest [US] into permanent drought PhysOrg

China?

Taiwan and the limits of American power Asia Times (Kevin W)

China’s economy lags in July under pressure from tariffs and a weak property market Independent

China’s first contraction in outstanding loans since 2005 has crystallized worries about a deepening downturn for the world’s second-largest economy Bloomberg

China’s mega dam Xiluodu stops using Western industrial chips over security concerns South China Morning Post (guurst)

India

Worse than Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan’: Financial planner warns of income crisis in India Business Today

Africa

Sudan loses over a third of power output as war plunges cities into darkness New Arab

Mali junta accuses ‘foreign states’ of attempted destabilisation plot France24

Antipodes

New Zealand’s population exodus hits 13-year high as economy worsens Reuters

South of the Border

Exclusive: Trump ally Erik Prince plans to keep personnel in Haiti for 10 years to fight gangs and collect taxes Reuters. resilc: “He could be our next dictator after Trump.”

US Military Deploying Forces to Southern Caribbean Against Drug Groups US News

European Disunion

German Russia policy has shattered due to its denial of reality Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)

French borrowing costs close in on Italy’s as investors fret over debts Financial Times

Davos founder Schwab cleared of misconduct by WEF probe Agence France-Presse

Old Blighty

Bond traders know that Britain’s in trouble CAPX

Young people are becoming increasingly authoritarian Spectator

Israel v. The Resistance

Please click through for full text:

this is a moment for the history books. It tells us so much about the Israeli psyche.

After failing utterly to defeat a tiny resistance force of lightly armed native warriors in a tiny strip of land, over a period of two years, and after detonating the equivalent of seven… https://t.co/nbaPzEBMak

— susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى (@susanabulhawa) August 15, 2025

UN Gives Israel Pass to Rape Palestinians BettBeat

* *

Norway’s $1.9 Trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund Sells Off Israeli Assets YouTube

Italian dockworkers block passage of Saudi ship carrying arms for Israel The Cradle (Chuck L)

IDF troops given the heads up to prepare for Gaza offensive YNet

Not a single national news outlet has even mentioned the fact that a high ranking Israeli official was arrested in a child sex crime sting by the @FBI.

Then released and sent back to Israel. https://t.co/Cnasr2aFUv

— Shaun King (@shaunking) August 16, 2025

Putin-Trump Summit

Historic Summit: An Empty and Underwhelming PR Spectacle, But Still Good For Relations Simplicius

The Putin Trump Summit: A Triumph for Putin, A Disaster for the Neocons Larry Johnson

Trump leaves Alaska summit with Putin empty-handed after failing to reach a deal to end Ukraine war Associated Press (Kevin W)

USSR sweatshirt and chicken kyiv: Russia dials up trolling before Alaska summit Guardian (resilc)

Trump Calls Russia and China ‘Natural Enemies’ Vzgylad (Micael T)

New Not-So-Cold War

“The Ukrainian Soldier … is just not there.” Moon of Alabama

Experts say rural emergency rooms are increasingly run without doctors CNN (resilc)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Under the Sea: China’s Digital Silk Road and the Middle East Juan Cole

Transformer supply bottleneck threatens power system stability as load grows Utility Dive (resilc)

Trump 2.0

DC attorney general sues Trump over police takeover efforts The Hill

Roaming Charges: From Police State to Military Police State CounterPunch (resilc)

* * *

Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize Guardian (Dr. Kevin)

US sanctions Brazil health officials over Cuba’s overseas medical missions Aljazeera (Kevin W)

Kristi Noem is living free of charge in Coast Guard commandant’s home Washington Post (resilc)

Draft of ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Report Suggests RFK Jr. Won’t Push Pesticide Regulations New York Times (resilc)

Trumpists against Trump London Review of Books (resilc)

DOGE

A DOGE AI Tool Called SweetREX Is Coming to Slash US Government Regulation WIRED

Democrats en déshabillé

This Could Be the End of Chuck Schumer’s Political Career PJ (Chuck L)

Mamdani

Norman made the same point: https://t.co/LwH5EbQqxi Why is Obama calling him and getting his genocidal Zionist crew of David Axelrod and other scum to worm themselves into Zohran’s inner circle? Why are Time Magazine and the other liberal genocidal Zionist rags doing fawning…

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) August 14, 2025

Mr. Market is Moody

The global bond glut: a doom loop of financial repression OMFIF

AI and The Modern Tower Of Babel indi.ca (resilc)

Does Generative AI Facilitate Investor Trading? Early Evidence from ChatGPT Outages ScienceDirect

Class-action suit claims Otter AI secretly records private work conversations NPR (Kevin W)

Musk, a Guillotine Watch Special Feature

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Most Likely Doesn’t Pay Taxes New York Times (resilc)

Apple (and everyone else) tells Elon Musk he’s wrong about app favoritism MacWorld

Guillotine Watch

Giving Pledge is falling far short of its promise, report finds | Philanthropy news PND (resilc)

Class Warfare

>Money Can’t Buy Life: The Richest Americans Die Earlier Than the Poorest Europeans Vice. From earlier this year, still germane. We wrote about this first in 2007, that highly unequal societies exact a lifespan cost even on the wealthy.

121 College Towns Examined: Is Buying a Home Cheaper Than Campus Housing? Globest (Robin K)

The Vanishing White Male Writer Compact (Chuck L). Hhhm.

Inside the automated warehouse where robots are packing your groceries The Verge (resilc)

Antidote du jour (via):