Rattling: A magnitude 5.3 magnitude earthquake detected in North Korea revealed that the Hermit Kingdom had carried out its fifth nuclear bomb test. North Korea claimed it has developed a bomb capable of being mounted on a missile, but it still doesn’t have a missile that can dependably deliver a nuke.

Both the United States and China have condemned the test and President Obama said there would be consequences. South Korea accused the North’s leader Kim Jong-un of “maniacal recklessness”.

To Russia, With Love: Donald Trump and his running mate are sticking with their praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who they say is a better leader than Barack Obama. Trump said it Wednesday night at the national security forum, “he is really very much of a leader,” and yesterday his vice presidential candidate Mike Pence said, “I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.”

Putin forcibly annexed Crimea and sent troops into Ukraine.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who supports Trump like he’s holding a dead rat by the tail, told reporters yesterday, “Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests.” He did not directly criticize Trump and Pence.

Next Question: Hillary Clinton broke her string of going 270 days without a press conference standing at a podium yesterday taking questions from the campaign press. The Democratic candidate has been criticized — by the press, of course — for keeping her distance from the press. Clinton has taken such a beating over the years, usually when the news is bad, that she’s gun shy. She’s taken questions on her plane the last few days, but this was her first formal press conference.

Clinton took the first several minutes to slam Donald Trump’s performance at Wednesday night’s national security forum and managed to survive the presser without getting mugged. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote, “Politics is sometimes simpler than we all make it out to be. Maybe Clinton figured that out this morning.”

Galaxy Warning: The FAA has warned airline passengers not to put their new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones inside the overhead bins or checked bags, or to even leave them turned on. The phones have a tendency to catch fire and the company has recalled 2.5 million of them.

Room for Improvement: Airbnb, the website that connects people who need a room with people who have one to let out, says it’s taking action to reduce racial discrimination by the landlords. A report by the ACLU says,

“There have been too many unacceptable instances of people being discriminated against on the Airbnb platform because of who they are or what they look like.”

The company says it’s going to ask all users to agree to a “community commitment” to use the service “regardless of race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.”

Bank On It: Wells Fargo bank is being fined $185 million because its employees systematically created fake credit card and financial service accounts in the names of actual customers to meet high-pressure sales goals. The fine includes a $100 million levy by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest in the agency’s short history.

Wells Fargo says it has fired 5,300 employees who were involved. It would be interesting to know how many are executives, and how many are just spear carriers.

Take a Knee: It could be a football season of national anthem protests. Denver Bronco linebacker Brandon Marshall, a college teammate of San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick, took a knee last night during the national anthem before the season opener against Carolina. Kaepernick has been taking a knee to protest the treatment of black Americans.

High Anxiety: Forty-five people spent the night in cable cars suspended high over the French Alps after a breakdown. Two cables got crossed. Sixty-five people had been plucked out by helicopter before nightfall and the rest were rescued today.

Carmen Sandiego: In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday, when Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson responded to a question about the refugee crisis in Aleppo, Johnson answered with a question of his own. “What is Aleppo?”

Informed that Aleppo is ground-zero of the bloody Syrian civil war, the man who would be president replied, “OK, got it.”

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