Brookings Institution "Primaries Project" report, Aug. 16:

A community of New Yorkers has formed around controlled, costumed combat.

Photographs by Devin Yalkin; Text by Ben Detrick; Produced by Eve Lyons @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 18

By day, Jake Gomez works as a special-education teacher in Downtown Brooklyn. But on a Friday evening in June, the stocky, mohawked 31-year-old was professionally elbow-dropping opponents in the ring. Within the cinder-block recreation center of Most Precious Blood Church in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, he was Logan Black, the King of Chaos.

The former UN secretary general became a proponent of diplomatic interventions to alleviate human suffering. Annan died Saturday at the age of 80.

By Krishnadev Calamur @ TheAtlantic.com, Aug. 18

Kofi Annan, who died Saturday at the age of 80 in Bern, Switzerland, will be remembered as the UN’s first secretary-general from sub-Saharan Africa, a courtly figure who oversaw the global organization during a period of tumult, and as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. But in many ways, Annan’s legacy will be defined as much by his failures, and what he did with them, as by his many successes [....]

By Andrew Rosati  & Ethan Bronner @ Bloomberg via LMTOnline.com, August 17, 2018

[....] A participant in the April Bogota meeting said in an interview that he believes the people his group met with were the perpetrators.

His group, which included members of all four armed-service branches, was later infiltrated by the Venezuelan security services. Several dozen were arrested, breaking up the most serious attempt to overthrow Maduro in his five years in office. The plan was called Operation Constitution. The man remains abroad.

With that headline, thought it deserved a new thread! Here's a cross-link to the previous thread by barefooted, started when the Brennan story broke.

By Clare Foran @ CNN.com, Aug. 17

Sixty former CIA officials warned President Donald Trump in a statement on Friday that "the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views."