First Warnings System has developed a high-tech bra that relies on sensors "to detect unusual heat patterns in breast tissue" and identify abnormalities early, said Lara Piras at PSFK.com. The device, known as a Circadian Biometric Recorder, "is applied via a bra insert" and uses the heat-reading sensors to gather and record changes in cell activity, which it then transmits to a computer for analysis. The company hopes to roll out the bra in Europe by 2015 and is awaiting approval from the FDA.
In 2015, 3.5 millions Americans climbed out of poverty as the U.S. poverty rate fell by 1.2 percent, the sharpest annual decline since 1999, The New York Times reports, citing new U.S. Census data. No state reported an increase in poverty — typically defined as making less than $24,300 a year for a family of four — and 23 states saw a notable improvement in 2015. Preliminary evidence indicates that the positive trend has continued in 2016, though not as robustly. The black and Hispanic communities still have the highest poverty rates — 24.1 percent and 21.4 percent respectively, versus 13.4 percent overall and 9.1 percent for whites — but they also experienced the sharpest drops in poverty in 2015, the Times reports.
The big drivers of the decrease in poverty were the 2.9 million net new jobs, increased hours for part-time workers, and rising wages due to higher minimums in some large cities and states and increasing competition for labor, plus some effective local and federal back-to-work programs. "It all came together at the same time," business economist Diane Swonk tells the Times. "Lots of employment and wages gains, particularly in the lowest-paying end of the jobs spectrum, combined with minimum-wage increases that started to hit some very large population areas." At the same time, some 43 million Americans, including 14 million children, are still classified as poor, and you can read more about the good and the bad at The New York Times. Peter Weber
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are meeting in their first of three presidential debates on Monday night at New York's Hofstra University, and with the race neck and neck, the stakes are very high. The 90-minute debate, moderated by NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, takes place amid a heated debate over whether the moderator should call out gross factual inaccuracies from either candidate — the Clinton camp says yes, the Trump side says no. Clinton has been studying Trump's temperament as well as the issues, and Trump's campaign says the Republican nominee has been largely eschewing normal debate preparations.
The debate begins at 9 p.m. Eastern time, and will be broadcast on PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, plus C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Facebook and Twitter, as well as several other websites, will also livestream the debate. And if you want to prepare by boning up on every debate since 1960, PBS Newshour has an interactive site at the ready. An estimated 100 million people are expected to tune in to the debate. You can get a sense of Holt's task Monday night in the CNNMoney preview below. Peter Weber
Everyone, it seems, has advice for what Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should do in their first presidential debate on Monday. But one intrepid expert at the University of Michigan has already compiled a new book on debating Trump, just 18 months into Trump's political career. In 11 Republican primary debates, Trump stood on stage for almost 24 hours total and spoke for a combined 3 hours, 20 minutes, and 7 seconds, and that record "gives insights into how he could deal with Clinton, and she can deal with him," Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan and editor of the new book Debating the Donald, told USA Today.
One-on-one presidential debates are different than the multi-candidate primary debates Trump has participated in so far, but Kall and other debate experts say that Trump will likely carry some of his tactics to his first Clinton debate at Hofstra University in New York. Some examples include deploying devastating one-liners especially if Clinton attacks him, using his unpredictably to his advantage, talking directly to the TV audience, subtly belittling Clinton through interruption and calling the former senator and secretary of state "Hillary," and claiming he won the debate no matter what happens.
You can find examples of each of those tactics at USA Today, and reporter Rick Hampson sums up the collective wisdom for Clinton: "Don't hit unless you're ready to be hit; steer the debate toward detailed (and possibly boring) policy discussions; control the clock if you don't want Trump to; and watch out if he tells you how good you look." You can watch CNN's brief retrospective on what not to do more generally below. Peter Weber
The first presidential debate is Monday night, "and more than 100 million people could be watching two candidates whose campaigns have been defined less by questions about their policies than their ethics," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. Previous presidential campaigns have had their scandals, "but this campaign, the scandals have been so pronounced, polls show that less than half the electorate sees either candidate as honest or trustworthy. And you may not like either candidate for good reasons, but if you are still somehow torn about which one to vote for and are factoring their scandals into your decision, we thought it might help to spend tonight walking you through them."
He started with Hillary Clinton. Not all his viewers will be happy about digging through Clinton's closet, Oliver conceded, but "not being as bad as Donald Trump is a low bar to clear, and if you focus on nothing but him, you fail to vet a woman who may be president." There are plenty of silly outrages and phony scandals on the internet, "but many rational people are still worried about two scandals," the emails and the Clinton Foundation, he said. Oliver ran through what we know about each, then said, "Look, we've spent several frustrating weeks trawling through all the innuendo and exaggeration surrounding her email and foundation scandals, and the worst thing you can say is: They both look bad, but the harder you look, the less you actually find. There's not nothing there, but what is there is irritating rather than grossly nefarious." That brought him to Donald Trump.
"If you are struggling with the idea of voting for Hillary because of all this, you need to take a long, hard look at Trump," Oliver said. "If you're irritated by her lying, that is understandable, but he's quantifiably worse." There's his refusal to release tax returns, sprawling global business empire, and the Trump Foundation. "And the thing is, we have barely scratched the surface of his scandals — there is everything," Oliver said. He wrapped up with an analogy comparing raisins and ethical failings, but first laid out his bottom line: "This campaign has been dominated by scandals, but it is dangerous to think that there is an equal number on both sides. And you can be irritated by some of Hillary's — that is understandable — but you should then be f--king outraged by Trump's." You can watch Oliver's scandal cheat sheet — with mildly NSFW language — below. Peter Weber
In Hollywood, even the animal actors shave a couple of years off their real ages, and new legislation will help keep the actual DOBs of stars under wraps.
On Saturday, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation that requires online subscription entertainment database sites, like IMDb, to remove the age of an actor if asked; the site will have five days to follow through with the order. Opponents say removing accurate age information from the websites stifles free speech, Variety reports, but the bill's sponsor and actors, including SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris, believe it's a necessary move to prevent age discrimination, rampant in Hollywood.
Before Brown signed the bill, Carteris urged SAG-AFTRA members to reach out to the governor to push him into backing the bill, writing that an actor's age being published on a site used for casting causes "career damage." After the legislation was signed, Carteris said in a statement the bill will help actors secure "a fair opportunity to prove what they can do." Age wasn't a factor when it came to Carteris' most famous role as intense newspaper editor turned unexpected young mother and wife Andrea Zuckerman on the 1990s hit Beverly Hills 90210; she was 29 years old when she first started playing a 16-year-old. Catherine Garcia
Monday night is the highly anticipated first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and on Sunday night, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer — a fan of neither candidate — gave his unsolicited advice to both on Megyn Kelly's Kelly File. He started with Trump, advising that "between now and tomorrow night, decaf only, don't talk about your hands, and in the end, think of yourself in the press conference with the president of Mexico." Kelly pointed out that Trump drinks neither alcohol nor caffeine, so no coffee, and Krauthammer said, "He's off on the right foot."
"Your job in this debate is to make people look at you and think you're a plausible president," Krauthammer said to Trump, and viewers "won't appreciate snarkiness or disrespect," as in the GOP primary debates. Trump's goal isn't to "win on points, not to win on substance," but "to show himself to be calm," he added, which means first and foremost don't "shout."
With Clinton, on the other hand, "I think what she needs to do is jab," Krauthammer said, "not to go for the haymaker, not to go for the one thing that's going to knock him out. He's very good at rope-a-dope and slipping away — you see, all the metaphors are boxing, because this really is a spectacle of boxing." In that vein, what Clinton "needs to do is the flurries, in other words to attack him on many points, calmly but one after another. I'm sure at some point he's going to want to succumb and strike back, and that's her opportunity." What if the debate is boring? Kelly asked. "Boring, he wins," Krauthammer said. "If he can be up there for 90 minutes and be dull, he wins the debate." "I'm excited to see them be dull," Kelly said. "I don't care." Watch below. Peter Weber
Ohio's method of removing voters from the registration rolls after six years of not voting was ruled unconstitutional Friday by a federal appeals court.
A lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Ohio and Demos, a public policy organization, asked that the controversial "supplemental process" come to a halt and the thousands of people kicked off the rolls but still eligible to vote be reinstated. They argued that this November, it's likely people who don't vote as often will hit the polls, and the process violates the National Voter Registration Act, which says states are only able to remove voters from the rolls if they request it, move, or die. Secretary of State Jon Husted says Ohio removes voters from the rolls to prevent fraud and keep the rolls current.
In June, ABC News reported many of the voters taken off the rolls lived in low-income neighborhoods or areas that typically voted Democrat. On Friday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision in favor of Husted, who said in a statement he was "frustrated" by the ruling that "overturns 20 years of Ohio law and practice, which has been carried out by the last four secretaries of state, both Democrat and Republican." Mike Brickner, senior policy director of the ACLU of Ohio, said he is hopeful that a "plan will emerge soon to allow the tens of thousands of voters illegally purged from the rolls to vote in the upcoming presidential election." Catherine Garcia
