AED ISSUES ANOTHER STATEMENT REGARDING U.S.-CANADA TRADE SITUATION

Schaumburg, Ill. Brian P. McGuire, president & CEO of Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) issued the following statement regarding the trade situation between the United States and Canada:

 

“AED is disappointed that the United States and Canada could not come to a trade agreement during recent negotiations. However, our resolve remains strong.”

“AED has always had a stance supporting free and fair trade in North America, as the best means for achieving economic prosperity and growth in the sectors our members serve. Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs damage the economies on both sides of the border. Any measures that target equipment that builds, feeds and fuels both countries are detrimental regardless of if they're imposed by Canada or the United States. AED will continue to work with officials and political leaders on both sides of the border to encourage a return to the bargaining table.” 

WOMAN FILMING ALLIGATOR DURING NIGHT SWIM DIDN'T REALIZE SHE WAS BEING SURROUNDED

PEOPLE

 

Woman Filming Alligator During Night Swim Doesn’t Realize She’s Being Surrounded. Her Fast Thinking Saved Her Life (Exclusive)

By Luke Chinman  Published on August 24, 2026 05:59AM EDT

 

Rosie Moore has had a few close calls out in the field.

 

The 30-year-old wildlife researcher regularly encounters some of the natural world’s most dangerous creatures: sharks, crocodiles, pythons and more. Moore has her own nonprofit for reptile research and a position at the International SeaKeepers Society, where she now undertakes extreme marine expeditions to locate rare species and tag dangerous wildlife.

 

Essentially, she tells PEOPLE, she has a fascination with “anything that can kill you” — and a desire to “figure out” how they think and operate.

 

“I think people overestimate how dangerous some animals are because they just don’t have any baseline knowledge on how to operate or be around that animal,” she says. “Somebody from Missouri has probably never swam with a tiger shark in the wild before, so they don’t have any baseline knowledge of how to swim with a tiger shark or that you can do it safely.” (She can testify, as someone who was raised in Missouri.)

 

Still, there’s no question that Moore’s chosen profession comes with risk — and it’s often what others are most fascinated by. The question of her scariest encounter is one she frequently receives, but she says it’s hard to pick just one.

 

“There’s been so many instances where if they went slightly more wrong than they did, that would’ve been it,” she admits. “You almost get used to it, where your brain stops registering how dangerous it was at the time.”

 

On one occasion last year, Moore was filming alligators in the Everglades, and she got the idea to take a night swim with a friend.

 

In the water — in the dark of the night — Moore was filming the alligator in front of her, but didn’t realize there were others around her as well. As the camera was rolling, trained only on the one gator, another came out from behind a tree and lunged toward her for a bite.

 

“I heard the movement of the trees, luckily, because most of my head was underwater, so I barely heard it,” she tells PEOPLE.

 

Moore had a split second to react. She swung her camera around, putting it between herself and the alligator, and used the equipment to protect herself.

 

“I fed it my camera — it bit down on it,” she says. “I have a huge scratch on my dome from it. It dropped it once it realized it wasn’t food, and then I was able to get out of the water onto the bank and get out.”

 

After a near miss like that one, Moore admits that it does scare her a bit to go out into the field (the gator incident actually came after a string of “near-death” experiences, she says).

 

“I was a little traumatized for two months, and I was like, ‘I’m not leaving the house. I’m not doing anything,’ ” she says. “But, I mean, you’re going to go back and do it. It’s like your whole lifestyle and your whole identity and your career is doing all the crazy outdoor adventures.”

RADIO-RELATED STUFF: MOSTLY AM CATCHES

Picked up WRKO Boston last week with "Coast to Coast" under 680 News Toronto.

Picked up WFIL Philadelphia tonight for the first time with Pastor Ernie Sanders.

Picked up Froggy 97 Watertown tonight with much fainter signal than last night. 

THE DECLINE IN VIOLENT CRIME IS SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE

National Review

 

The Decline in Violent Crime Is Worth Celebrating

By The Editors

August 18, 2026 2:15 PM

 

While there was a notable spike in violent crimes and disorder during the Covid-19 pandemic and the “peak woke” era in 2020, the FBI’s 2025 report shows an ongoing and accelerating decline in violent crimes in America. The violent crime rate dropped 9.7 percent just last year, the largest annual drop since the FBI started tallying these numbers in 1936. This is a trend that dates back to the Biden era and has accelerated under President Trump and is an unalloyed good that should be celebrated.

 

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter dropped 18.1 percent. Robbery dropped 18.5 percent, and rape 7.6 percent. The U.S. murder rate decreased 18.4 percent. The FBI estimates that the rate of just 4.1 murders per 100,000 residents is America’s lowest since 1955 and 1956.

 

Recent municipal reporting reflects the broader national trend. Baltimore has reached a record-low murder rate, with homicides dropping 23 percent in the city in the first half of this year. Baltimore detectives, burdened by fewer cases, are now clearing a record number of cases. So, not only is the drop in crime a sign of increased safety; it’s resulting in more justice for the remaining criminals and victims.

 

Trump has tried to take credit for the trend, citing the deployment of national guardsmen to certain cities, especially Washington, D.C., and Nashville. But criminologists note that the decline in violent crime is too widespread and consistent to be attributable to any one set of policies, whether national or municipal.

 

Likely we are seeing the results of several cultural and technological changes that converge in this direction. People spend more time online, glued to phones and tablets. The cellphones themselves may have made drug-dealing less territorial. There has also been an incredible growth in surveillance technology — whether Flock cameras, Ring-style camera-doorbells, or cellphone users recording every incident — that dissuades criminals from risk-taking and helps lead to the apprehension of criminals. Some analysts theorize it’s the explosion of online vice — porn and gambling — or video games keeping young men indoors. Still others point to exotic-seeming factors like improved childhood nutrition or the decline of lead content in paint.

 

It will take criminologists and sociologists years of study to begin sussing out the true causes of the decline. But what’s not in doubt is that this fall in violent crime is a boon to American cities and to American social life generally — and another sign that the doomsayers about this country are blinkered and wrong.

BELGIANS STILL REFUSING AIR CONDITIONING BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO BE AMERICANS

New York Post

 

European heatwave killed more people in one region than height of COVID — and locals still refuse AC: ‘Don’t want to be Americans’

By Anthony Blair

Published Aug. 18, 2026, 5:15 p.m. ET

 

More than 16,000 people died in a single week during Europe’s heatwave in late June — and in at least one area, the daily death toll spiked above the highs of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of mortality data.

 

In Wallonia, in southern Belgium, 313 deaths were recorded in just one day, June 28, compared to 245 daily deaths at the peak of COVID in November 2020, the New York Times found.

 

As temperatures soared to over 100 degrees, Wallonia recorded a death rate 77% higher than expected between mid-June and early July, leaving some hospitals overrun.

 

Despite the horrific toll, local leaders are still resisting installing air conditioning. Just 20% of European homes have the common technology — compared to 90% in the US.

 

“Air-conditioning can be appropriate in specific situations, particularly for vulnerable people or certain buildings,” said a spokesperson for Wallonia’s housing and energy minister, adding that their “long-term strategy is not based on its widespread use.”

 

Sniffy Belgians also do not “want to be Americans,” Belgian doctor Toon Ceyssens told the Times.

 

Around 16,000 excess deaths were recorded in Europe in just one week in late June, with Belgium, France, and Germany most affected, according to figures from the European Mortality Monitoring Network.

 

“Each crisis is becoming increasingly severe. That’s what we’re failing to anticipate,” Wallonia’s regional health minister Yves Coppieters told the Times.

 

Half of all emergency rooms in Wallonia’s hospitals have no air conditioning, according to Dr. Philippe Devos, director general of a health care provider federation.

 

In the region’s overcrowded health centers, calls to emergency operators often took 10 minutes to get through, and many sick people were lined up in the hallways to allow privacy for the dead, the Times reported.

 

Around 85% of the excess deaths in Wallonia were among those aged 65 or over, with low-income seniors who lived alone particularly at risk, according to official statistics.

 

“It’s a country that is considered cold, culturally. People think more about heating their house than cooling their house,” Gilles Vanvolsem, managing director of the Belgian Green Building Council, told the Times.

 

The number of households with AC, which is lower than most other developed economies, drops to between 4-6% in France, Germany, and the UK, which have all seen blistering heatwaves this summer.

 

Some doctors are calling on older people to install AC units, despite many being reluctant.

 

“The mentality on air conditioning has to change,” Belgian doctor Toon Ceyssens told the Times, adding that many of his patients were reluctant to install AC over fears it would make them sick, spread germs, and harm the environment.

 

Belgian officials continue to hesitate over introducing AC, warning it could overwhelm the power grid and heat up cities by pumping out hot air into the streets.

 

Authorities are instead looking at introducing more so-called cooling spaces and instituting policies to encourage housing renovation.

TEXAS MAN MAILS FIFTY DOLLAR TIP TO CALIFORNIA DELI

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

 

Texas man, worried he didn't leave a tip, mails $50 to famous Southern California deli

A Texas man went above and beyond to make sure he left a tip after visiting Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles.

By Génesis Miranda Miramontes • Published August 19, 2026 • Updated on August 19, 2026 at 11:14 am

 

A man from El Paso, Texas, went above and beyond to make sure he left a tip after visiting Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles.

 

In a social media post, the deli shared a heartfelt letter sent to them by Roberto José Andrade, along with $50 for the tip he couldn’t remember if he had left.

 

After enjoying a meal and paying the bill, Andrade said he drove away and wondered "Did I leave a tip?"

 

“I'm about 75% sure I did. Of course, that leaves a 25% change I didn't and honestly, that's been bothering me for the past few weeks,” Andrade wrote in the letter.

 

He explained how his first job was bussing and waiting tables, and said he recognized how important a tip is to someone in that position.

 

“That's why I'm sending these $50 just in case I forgot to include the tip,” the letter said.

 

Andrade then shared a very detailed description of his visit to Langer’s Deli to help identify the waitress. He kindly asked that the tip be given to the waitress, along with an apology.

 

“Roberto, thank you for going out of your way to do the right thing when nobody would have known otherwise. Your table’s always ready here,” the restaurant said in its social media post.

 

This story originally appeared on NBCLosAngeles.com.

FORMER FAUCI ADVISER DAVID MORENS PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY TO HIDE COVID RECORDS

National Review

 

Former Fauci Adviser David Morens Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Hide Covid-Related Records

By Brittany Bernstein

August 19, 2026 10:42 AM

 

David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hiding federal records from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Morens, a senior adviser at NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022 under Dr. Anthony Fauci, was charged by the Department of Justice in April with five counts related to the scheme.

 

He agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors this week that would see him plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses or to defraud the United States. The charge carries up to five years in prison.

 

Morens’s attorney, Tim Belevetz, told several media outlets, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.”

 

The indictment came after the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic found evidence that Morens had used his personal email to discuss Covid-19’s origins and National Institutes of Health grants with EcoHealth Alliance, including a terminated coronavirus grant, in an attempt to keep the communications hidden from hypothetical future FOIA requests.

 

The committee obtained a communication between Morens and EcoHealth President Peter Daszak in which Morens wrote, “I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

 

In another 2021 email, Morens wrote, “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe.”

 

“Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail,” he wrote.

 

Prosecutors also accused Morens of using his personal Gmail account to “back-channel” information to an unidentified senior NIAID official, who appears to be Fauci.

 

EcoHealth was awarded millions of dollars in grants from the NIH, including funds that were subgranted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to study bat coronaviruses. The lab-leak theory of Covid’s origins, which Fauci and other federal officials tried to publicly dismiss, suggests the virus emerged from the Wuhan institute.

 

Fauci “prompted” “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” a paper published in Nature Medicine in March 2020 that would go on to be widely cited by the journalists and public health officials who roundly dismissed the idea that Covid-19 had emerged from a lab leak in Wuhan.

 

But recent document dumps by Paul’s office show Fauci and other scientists, including those who authored the papers, were privately casting doubts about a natural origin for the virus.

 

Fauci’s diary details his February 1, 2020, call with a dozen scientists that ultimately led to the “Proximal Origin” paper. He reveals in his writings that just two of the scientists thought the virus had natural origins; the other ten “felt that deliberate insertion was possible,” Fauci wrote.

 

Not only that, but the scientists pointed to the gain-of-function studies on coronaviruses in Wuhan as a particular point of concern.

 

The federal government formally debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak last year, prohibiting them from receiving taxpayer funding for five years.

 

The guilty plea also sees Morens admit to conspiring with Daszak to pay illegal gratuities. Morens received two bottles of wine in June 2020 from Daszak, who is identified only as “co-conspirator 1” in court filings. Daszak told Morens in an email to his personal account that he could provide additional items of value, including a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

 

As investigations into Morens’ actions unfolded in 2024, Fauci distanced himself from the longtime adviser and denied using his personal email to conduct official business.

 

“With respect to his recent testimony before this subcommittee, I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth or his emails. It is important to point out for the record that despite his title, and even though he was helpful to me in writing scientific papers, Dr. Morens was not an advisor to me on [NIAID] policy, or other substantive issues,” Fauci said.

 

Both Fauci’s emails and his personal diary have now been made public thanks to efforts from Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) to investigate any potential coverup Fauci and his associates may have orchestrated around Covid-19’s origins.

 

The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted earlier this month to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he appeared before the committee but pleaded the Fifth to avoid answering questions by Paul and others about his obfuscation of facts surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Send a tip to the news team at NR.