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Video Assange maintains Google is in bed with the state department and also reveals the false allegations the US military made against WikiLeaks, which surfaced during the Chelsea Manning trial. Assange talks about Guardian gaffs, Glenn Greenwald, FinFisher spyware and the NSA’s rampant antics. The interview reveals 'an extremely alarming phenomenon': how more and more security-cleared Americans are joining the ranks of the 'state within a state' – 6 million to date.

The U.S. and China have reached their first ever cybercrime and cyberespionage agreement, but the deal is quite general and how it will translate into actions is still unclear.Leaders of both countries announced the deal in Washington on Friday after two days of top-level talks, but both dodged questions on specific hacking incidents or the indictment last year by the U.S. of five Chinese military hackers for cybercrimes."We have agreed that neither the U.S. or the Chinese government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage," President Obama said at a White House news conference.And that appears to be the main thrust of the agreement -- government-sponsored cyberespionage for the economic gain of companies. It doesn't cover government espionage and is pretty specific in its definition but, as President Obama indicated: It's a start.

The Islamic State Caliph Baghdadi was nearly killed today. This also happened on two earlier occasions one last year and one in April this year. But today at least a few IS honchos found their end. The probably decisive difference was the involvement of the 4+1 intelligence operations room in Baghdad on which I reported here ten days ago. How the news developed:

Reuters: Iraqi air force hits convoy of Islamic State leader Baghdadi

Even if this was only a near miss and not a lethal hit on the Caliph himself the operation is a success for the recently revealed intelligence cooperation between Syria, Iraq, Russia, Iran and Hizbullah. That the U.S. was not involved in and not even informed of the operation is a sign of the increasing mistrust the Iraqi government develops against it. Here is the reason:

MichiganJudges Retirement ServicesMichigan Office of Retirement ServicesMichigan Public School Employees Retirement SystemMichigan Treasury/Michigan Bureau of InvestmentsOffice of Retirement SystemsPublic School Employees Retirement SystemRetirement Systems of the City of DetroitState Employees Retirement SystemState Police Retirement Board

The recession may have officially ended in mid-2009, but millions of working Americans have seen their income remain frustratingly stagnant since the economy collapsed. New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm that the median household income in the U.S. was $53,482 between 2010 and 2014, down from $56,568 between 2005 and 2009 when adjusted for inflation—a drop of 5%. By the same metric, just 1,038 of 3,142 counties have a higher median income than they did five years ago. The following map shades every county by its growth or decline in median income since 2009.

Data for 2009 comes from the American Community Survey’s five-year sample from 2005-2009 in 2009 dollars, while data for 2014 is from the ACS five-year survey for 2010-2014. (Five-year samples are necessary to get data for every county.) The 2009 figures in these maps and charts are adjusted up by 10% using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.