PBC News & Comment: Britain’s Flimsy Novichock Claims Are Dissolving

British leaders scramble to defend unproven assertions of Russian responsibility for Skripal attack as experts waffle and Yulia Skripal speaks….--Boris Johnson’s exaggerations belatedly produce some skepticism, demands for evidence
--Craig Murray’s challenges are validated by latest reports
--great news! Joe Lauria named editor-in-chief at ConsortiumNews
--Ray McGovern publishes private note from Poppy Bush about the”crazies” who worked for W, notably John Bolton
--ProPublica recounts Bolton’s abrasive style, and addiction to dodgy intel
--will California join other states observing Trump’s decree to send National Guard to the Mexican border? Will Native American tribes offer sanctuary to immigrants?
--Facebook’s Zuckerberg issues mea culpa, offers action plan, and admits that 87 million had data scraped by Cambridge Analytica
--Trump White House throws shade over EPA wrecker Scott Pruitt
--following shooting at headquarters, YouTube feels the pain of wild conspiracy theories like the kind it often promotes
--new study shows Muslim suspects get sentences 4 times longer than others, and 7 times more coverage
--NYPD settlement bans future profiling and spying on Muslims after 6-year battle
--red states embrace evangelical junk science to permit “abortion reversal”
--2 worthy items at NY Times:
--UMich computer science Prof. Alex Haldeman delivers entertaining video take down of US election security
--Rukmini Callimachi’s year-long research of Islamic State explains how they funded their caliphate, and it wasn’t from oil
--Brazil’s Supreme Court sends Lula de Silva to prison, enabling rise of anti-corruption evangelicals