Actor and producer Sacha Noam Baron Cohen, aka ‘Ali-G’, and his wife are to donate $1 million (900,000 euros) to charities helping the Syrian refugees. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has been responsible for introducing and playing outrageous and cool characters in film, such as Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard and many others. Raw Story reports: The “Borat” star and actress wife Isla Fisher are giving $500,000 to Save the Children to pay for measles vaccinations for children in northern Syria. Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, a popular reporter from Kazakhstan.

News reports indicate that the notorious ‘Slaughterer of Mosul’ has been killed during air-strikes on ISIS in Iraq. ABNA reports: Local sources in Nineveh Province report that international coalition jets pounded ISIS positions in western neighbourhoods of Mosul on Saturday, killing a notorious judge from the ISIS court. ISIS Judge Abdullah Saffah, known as Abu Hafsa, was killed during the intense aerial raid. He was responsible for implementing Law in Mosul and had sentenced scores of people to death and stoning. He was known as “The Slaughterer of Mosul” by locals.

While the US economy may have unofficially entered an industrial recession in recent months with the dip in the manufacturing ISM below the critical 50 level, one sector has continued to do surprisingly well: automotive manufacturing, as a result of vibrant car sales. The reason for this, as we have repeatedly demonstrated, has been the record surge in auto loans, which have long surpassed both total credit card debt (and the $1 trillion mark), and continue to fund an unprecedented auto buying spree as they rush to catch up to the $1.2 trillion in total student loans.

Via Investment Research Dynamics,

A friend sent me a news item from U.S. News and World Report which reported that Louisiana’s board of education is going to implement a new policy which requires all students to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid in order to receive a high school diploma.

Think about that for a moment.  In order to receive a high diploma, the State of Louisiana is requiring that high school seniors fill out an application which would enable them to go into debt the moment they receive their diploma.

On Saturday, Bakr al-Baghdadi released a rare audio recording in which the ISIS leader threatened Israel (“we are getting closer to you everyday”), insisted that the Russian air campaign had not weakened the group (“hear the good news that our state is doing well"), and called upon Muslims to join the caliphate and take up arms against its enemies.