United States

Even before Harvey and Irma were set to punish Texas and Florida, erasing at least 0.4% GDP from Q3 GDP according to BofA and costing hundreds of billions in damages (contrary to the best broken window fallacy, the lost invested capital more than offsets the "flow" benefits from new spending, which is why the US does not bomb itself every time there is a recession to "stimulate growth"), things were turning south for the US economy, so much so that according to the latest Deutsche Bank model, which looks at economic data that still has to incorporate the Irma/Harvey effects,

A convoy of buses containing hundreds of lightly armed ISIS terrorists and their family members remains stuck in the Syrian desert and pinned down as US and coalition planes continue to pick off militants who stray too far from the group. External ISIS vehicles have also tried to access and aid the group, but as US coalition spokesman Army Col. Ryan S. Dillon stated, coalition aircraft are picking them off as they come close "like moths to the flame."

Authored by Doug Bandow via The National Interest,

North Korea staged its sixth nuclear test. It was probably a boosted atomic rather than hydrogen bomb, as claimed by Pyongyang, and there’s no evidence that the weapon has been miniaturized to fit on a missile. But the test was the North’s most powerful yet. And it follows steady North Korean progress in missile development.

After Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin had warned Thursday that the capital of the wealthiest state in the US could be broke in as little as two months, city officials scheduled a conference call with bondholders to begin restructuring talks, according to Bloomberg.

With North Korea expected to launch another ballistic missile as soon as September 9, a local holiday, a statement carried on North Korea’s state-run KCNA news service warned that Washington's UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s remarks that Pyongyang was “begging for war” would not be left unanswered and that the US will “pay dearly” for this provocation..

On Friday, a news broadcast from the official state-run Korean Central News Agency described Haley as a “political prostitute” whose “hysteric fit” would have dire consequences for the United States.