Econ 101: Inflation hit a 40-year high last month, a stunning increase in the price of living. The Labor Department reported that the inflation rate, the rise in prices for everything from gas to groceries, was 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending in June. 

  Number one is the price of gasoline. Even though the average price has dropped nearly 40 cents in the past month, it is up 60 percent over the past year. Food is up more than 10 percent and the cost of housing, up nearly six percent.

  The rise in prices for some items is scary. Eggs are up 33.1%, flour 19.2%, 18.6%. Milk is 16.4% more expensive. 

  Many households are spending $500 a month more than they did a year ago to live the same.

Swept Away: As many as 44 people are unaccounted for after storms and floods swept through southwestern Virginia yesterday in the Appalachian mountains. Entire homes were swept off their foundations.

  At least 4.5 inches of rain had fallen in six hours. Bridges were washed out and landslides blocked roads making it difficult for emergency workers to reach the devastated areas.

  The number of people killed, if any, is uncertain. The number who are unaccounted for is derived from friends and relatives who are unable to reach them. “It doesn’t necessarily mean they are in trouble or danger, it’s just that we need to go check on them,” Chief Deputy Eric Breeding of the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference.

The Political Divide: In a snapshot of the division in the American sense of reality, 61 percent of Republicans say Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election and 72 percent described the January 6th insurrection as a protest that got out of hand, according to a NY Times/Siena College poll.

  Despite the effort by Trump and his mob of followers to topple the government, only 55 percent of Americans say Trump went so far that he threatened democracy, according to the poll. While 92 percent of Democrats say Trump went too far, only 19 percent of Republicans agree.

  With discontent growing, 58 percent of Americans told the pollsters that the American democracy needs major reforms or a complete overhaul.

Tracking: In the fight over abortion rights, Google has announced that it will delete abortion clinic visits from the location history of its users because of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the 50 year old decision that previously made abortion legal.

  Google has terabytes of information about where users go and what they do. The deletion policy will also apply to trips to fertility clinics, domestic violence shelters, addiction treatment facilities, and other locations sensitive to personal health privacy.

  In states that ban or limit abortion, law enforcement would be expected to focus on health providers in violation. But with internet location information, they could also target the women who have procedures.

No Nukes: President Biden is in Israel negotiating the thorny issues of the Middle East, focusing in particular on Iran’s desire to become a nuclear power and its drone attacks on adversaries, including Israel. 

  Biden said Iran cannot be allowed to become a nuclear power, but he didn’t say how the US and other countries would prevent that. He did say he would use force as a last resort.

The War Zone:  Russian rockets hit an office building in central Ukraine, killing at least 12 people in another strike on a civilian target with no apparent military value. Another 90 people were wounded, half of them seriously, after three rockets hit the center of the provincial capital Vinnytsia. At least one child was among those killed. 

  US Secretary of State Russian Antony Blinken  yesterday accused Russia of committing war crimes in its treatment of civilians in occupied territories. Blinken said the Russians have  “interrogated,  detained, and forcibly deported” between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes into Russian territory. Blinken described the deportations as “a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians” and “a war crime.” 

  Russia admits that 1.5 million Ukrainians are now in Russia, but claims they were evacuated for their own safety.

The Spin Rack: The Justice Department has asked the House January 6^th Committee for the evidence it has collected about the scheme by former President Donald Trump and his cronies to turn the 2020 election by appointing unelected slates of pro-Trump electors in battleground states won by Joe Biden. Jr. — Police in Montgomery County, Maryland say they will begin enforcing a state law against disturbing the peace after more than two months of protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. They can protest but they can’t make noise. — In a confrontation with states where abortion is or is about to become illegal, the Biden administration warned the nation’s 60,000 retail pharmacies that they risk violating federal civil rights law if they refuse to fill prescriptions for abortion-inducing pills. 

You Can Tuna Piano — A federal judge has allowed a woman’s lawsuit against Subway can move forward, with its claim that the chain’s tuna sandwiches have little if any tuna fish in them. Nilima Amin’s lawsuit says a marine biologist who analyzed 20 samples of tuna from  Subway outlets and found “no detectable tuna DNA sequences whatsoever” in 19 of the samples. But, Amin says, the samples did contain chicken and pork.

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