Executive time began early on Thursday, just after sunrise.

Feeling exasperated and feisty as he awoke in the White House residence, President Trump fired off his grievances on Twitter about how the media had been covering his Helsinki summit. And, refusing to be cowed, Trump gave national security adviser John Bolton an order: to schedule a second summit and officially invite Putin to visit Washington.

The two presidents had already discussed the likelihood of a follow-up meeting, but at Trump’s direction Thursday morning, Bolton sprang into action to make it official, making an overture to the Kremlin. By midafternoon the White House announced that plans were underway for a fall summit in Washington.

The bulletin landed midway through a remarkably candid interview of Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats at the Aspen Security Forum that underscored the disconnect and tension on Russia policy between Trump and his administration. The intelligence chief criticized Trump’s performance during the Helsinki summit and — taking a deep breath and then offering a prolonged grimace-laugh — made clear that he had no advance knowledge of the follow-up meeting with Putin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-putin-fallout-inside-the-white-houses-tumultuous-week-of-walk-backs/2018/07/20/7cfdfc34-8c3d-11e8-8b20-60521f27434e_story.html

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand firm that let its employees work four days a week while being paid for five says the experiment was so successful that it hoped to make the change permanent.

The firm, Perpetual Guardian, which manages trusts, wills and estates, found the change actually boosted productivity among its 240 employees, who said they spent more time with their families, exercising, cooking, and working in their gardens.

The firm ran the experiment — which reduced the workweek to 32 hours from 40 — in March and April this year, and asked two researchers to study the effects on staff.

Jarrod Haar, a human resources professor at Auckland University of Technology, said employees reported a 24 percent improvement in work-life balance, and came back to work energized after their days off.

“Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn’t leave early or take long breaks,” Mr. Haar said. “Their actual job performance didn’t change when doing it over four days instead of five.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day-workweek-new-zealand.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Federal raids and questionable practices stalk the Twitter celebrity twins.

Since they burst onto the Twitter scene a year ago, observers have struggled to figure out what exactly to make of the Krassenstein brothers.

Are they simply a pair of prolific twins trying to maximize social media after a harrowing run-in with federal authorities? Are they the latest in a line of Twitter quasi-celebrities hunting for the missing link tying President Donald Trump to Russian collusion efforts? Are they scam artists, trying — like so many others — to swindle gullible Trump opponents into handing over their money?

Ed and Brian Krassenstein, 30-something brothers based out of Florida, have spent the past year becoming two of the most prominent voices on Twitter calling for the removal, and the imminent downfall, of Trump. It’s difficult to gauge their impact, let alone their point; Twitter, even with the patronage of the most powerful man in the world in Trump, is still mostly ephemera.

But the Krassensteins are a sort of sui generis actor on the platform, shamelessly blasting the president while marketing themselves and tweeting with abandon — and, given that there’s two of them, doing it at double-speed, gaining over a million followers combined along the way.

https://thinkprogress.org/who-are-the-krassenstein-brothers-251f68acf674/

Donald Trump Jr.’s new girlfriend, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, showered him with praise in a recent interview, from claiming he is the right’s most promising political figure to being the best “I ever shot with.”

Guilfoyle, 49, who started dating Trump Jr. around March when his wife Vanessa Trump filed for divorce, complimented him in Breitbart News Daily interview just a couple days after he invited her to the White House to celebrate July 4 with the Trumps.

She went so far as to suggest Trump Jr., 40, could be following in his father President Donald Trump’s footsteps.

“I think he is the number one up-and-coming political figure for sure, on the right,” Guilfoyle said.

Her comments are not surprising given reports on Friday she planned to leave Fox News to hit the campaign trail with Trump Jr. ahead of November's crucial. midterm elections.

https://www.newsweek.com/kimberly-guilfoyle-donald-trump-jr-1034988?utm_campaign=NewsweekTwitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

When Jodie Whittaker spoke at a Comic-Con panel for the first time since she was announced as the new Doctor Who, fans couldn't contain their excitement.

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1020313199802036224
https://twitter.com/Ruptly/status/1020282457025806337
https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1020024573822230528
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1020327156029812742

Later this year, Amazon will begin accepting grocery orders from customers using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal anti-poverty program formerly known as food stamps. As the nation’s largest e-commerce grocer, Amazon stands to profit more than any other retailer when the $70 billion program goes online after an initial eight-state pilot.

But this new revenue will effectively function as a double subsidy for the company: In Arizona, new data suggests that one in three of the company’s own employees depend on SNAP to put food on the table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be around one in 10. Overall, of five states that responded to a public records request for a list of their top employers of SNAP recipients, Amazon cracked the top 20 in four.

By 2021, Amazon is projected to handle 50 percent of all online sales in the United States. To accomplish this, it must add to the dozens of fulfillment centers that ensure the swift delivery of cheap televisions and shampoo bottles to nearly every corner of the nation. And to finance this expansion, the company will doubtless continue to leverage the promise of full-time jobs with benefits that it has used to win more than $1.2 billion in incentives from state and local governments so far.

However, though taxpayers have generously subsidized the build-out of Amazon’s warehouses, it’s not clear that the company has held up its end of the bargain. The jury is still out on its warehouses’ net effects on long term employment in the places they’re located. And independent analyses have shown that the company pays below-average wages for the warehouse jobs it brings to town.

https://theintercept.com/2018/04/19/amazon-snap-subsidies-warehousing-wages/

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The leaders of ISIS and Al Qaeda said on Friday that they were totally perplexed as to why Donald J. Trump had not yet invited them to the White House.

The terror chiefs said that, as sworn enemies of the United States, they had certainly attacked the country enough to warrant an invitation for an official visit, and possibly a state dinner.

“Maybe we haven’t done anything to directly undermine their democracy—I get that,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, said. “But we’ve been nemeses of America for years, and that ought to be worth something.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda, said that he also feels snubbed. “No invitation. Not even a save-the-date,” he said. “At this point, I’d settle for the White House Easter Egg Roll, but I’m not counting on anything.”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/leaders-of-isis-and-al-qaeda-puzzled-why-trump-has-not-invited-them-to-white-house?mbid=social_twitter

Hero dog who saved 12 lives in Mexico earthquake gets her own statue

Frida, the Navy rescue dog, and her coach Israel Arauz received their own statue at an ecological park in Mexico in recognition for their help during the aftermath of the Mexico earthquake last year. Frida quickly rose to fame after it was reported that she located more people beneath the rubble than any other Mexican rescue dog.







https://twitter.com/El_Universal_Mx/status/1020098461193068544
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1020243108817260544