Weather Report: The Mississippi River is rising at an alarming rate, threatening to break the records of flooding set in 1993 when the water breached 800 levees in Missouri. Floodwaters have already cut off some highways and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon urged people to move to higher ground after the deaths of 13 people over the past four days. Nixon said, “The vast majority of deaths we have had, and I can’t stress this enough, is of people driving into water, and especially driving into water at night.”

The Great Migration: The UN refugee agency says that more than a million refugees reached Europe by sea in 2015, about 80 percent of them through Greece and the Island of Lesbos.

Nearly half the migrants are from Syria and 21 percent from Afghanistan.

Germany reports that it has received about 1 million refugees this year, but that includes people who have come from the Balkan states.

I Spy: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration relied on electronic intercepts by the National Security Administration to counter the efforts of Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal.

The paper says, “Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.”

The Dwindling Crowd: The Boston Globe reports that former New York Gov. George Pataki is calling all his supporters and telling them he’s dropping out of the Republican race for president. Critics with quick lips say that’s not a lot of calls Pataki needs to make.

Gridiron Blues: The Philadelphia Eagles have fired coach Chip Kelly with one game left to play in the season after he failed to make the playoffs. Kelly is the master of the hurry-up offense that made the Oregon Ducks a college football power. He dumped and traded some big names in Philadelphia and was accused of being uncomfortable around black players. His personnel shifts were a bust. After going 10-6 in his first two years with Philadelphia, Kelly is 6-9 and out.

The Viral Candidate: Just days before former President Bill Clinton hits the road to campaign for his wife, Donald Trump has made some preemptory air strikes to notify the Clintons that Bill is a target. Trump tweeted two days ago, “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!”

This, from the guy who criticized his female opponent’s face.

On NBC Sunday morning Trump said, “You look at whether it’s Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or many of them. “That certainly will be fair game. Certainly if they play the woman’s card with respect to me, that will be fair game.”

He certainly knows how to get attention. Emma Roller muses in the NY Times that Trump is the presidential candidate for the age of viral sensations; the latest dog video and amazing surfing ride. Trump knows that what’s novel, outrageous, and loud is what’s popular. He’s all of those things.

Roller says, “It’s almost as if he understood the concept of Internet virality before a single cat ever LOLed.”

-30-