Mom and pop are running for the hills.

Since July, American households -- which account for almost all mutual fund investors -- have pulled money both from mutual funds that invest in stocks and those that invest in bonds. It’s the first time since 2008 that both asset classes have recorded back-to-back monthly withdrawals, according to a report by Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse estimates $6.5 billion left equity funds in July as $8.4 billion was pulled from bond funds, citing weekly data from the Investment Company Institute as of Aug. 19. Those outflows were followed up in the first three weeks of August, when investors withdrew $1.6 billion from stocks and $8.1 billion from bonds, said economist Dana Saporta.

Screw it, I’m calling it. I’ve been watching the so-called “markets” of China, the United States and a couple dozen other countries fall off a cliff, get up, stagger upward, fall off another cliff, and repeat. I’ve been listening to the chattering class say over and over again, this is normal, seen this before, everybody buy the dip. I’ve been watching the zombie oil-fracking revolution in this country go into spasms, jerking a few feet forward, a few feet back, gasping for breath, while the cheerleaders agree: perfectly normal, blood pressure okay, reflexes good, lend them more money. This is not normal, it is not okay, it is the Crash of 2015.

We will not likely agree on this until we stop using wildly different languages with which to discuss it. First of all, to refer to these things as “stock markets,” as if they were places where equities were bought and sold based on the soundness and prospects of the companies listed, is akin to putting your faith in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

These places are casinos filled with gambling addicts using other people’s money to bet, not on the future of a stock but on the popularity of a stock among the greater fools on whom the gambler must unload the shares of Consolidated Aggregators he just bought on the dip. In this casino, trading in shares themselves is like playing the slot machines, there in the lobby of the casino for the amusement of the little people risking their quarters. The real games are played in private rooms with derivatives, futures, hedges, credit default swaps, junk bonds. The master of the universe are even gambling on the outcomes of corporate lawsuits (and for what reason, do we suppose, has that practice alone drawn the disapproving attention of the drones of Washington?). They are buying hedges against the volatility of securities indexed to the volatility of the market. If you can think about that one for more than 30 seconds without your head exploding, your mellowness index is in the stratosphere. Increasingly the gambling is being done by machines, programmed by the Masters to detect the circumstances under which they are to blow up the world.

Hurricane Fred, which formed over the weekend in the far eastern Atlantic, is truly one of a kind. Not only has Fred set the record for easternmost hurricane in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, it prompted the very first hurricane warning for the Cape Verde Islands and has provided the first satellite view of a hurricane in the region since weather satellites were launched into space in the early 1960s.

Hurricane Fred is the first to actually pass over the Cape Verde Islands as a hurricane.

Hurricane Fred was born from Tropical Depression Six, which formed early Sunday morning just west of the coast of Africa. The system was quickly upgraded to Tropical Storm Fred, remarkably far east in the Atlantic. Then on Sunday night, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center saw enough strength in Fred to make it the second hurricane of the 2015 season, which also made it the easternmost hurricane formation on record in the Atlantic Ocean.

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -

The Harris County Sheriff's Office is investigating after a sheriff's deputy was fatally shot while on duty Friday at a Chevron gas station.

Sources told KPRC 2 that the officer was shot while pumping gas into his patrol car. Authorities said he was shot multiple times in the back and then shot multiple times once he was on the ground. Investigators said there is no known motive as this time and the shooter said nothing to the deputy before opening fire.

CEO and chairman of the board David H. Murdock, and the company’s former chief operating officer, C. Michael Carter fraudulently drove down their company’s stock price so they could shortchange shareholders and buy the business on the cheap.

Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery ordered Murdock and Carter to reimburse shareholders $148 million, reports the New York Times. His decision [PDF] comes after a February trial prompted by shareholders in the company, who didn’t think Murdock’s deal to buy the 60% of the company he didn’t own in 2013 was entirely on the up-and-up.

Before coming to the table with a deal for shareholders, Vice Chancellor Laster said Carter had misstated how much Dole could earn if it were to sell of some of its businesses, and canceled a stock buyback program.

That drove down the valuation of the stock, the judge said in his decision. Murdock at first offered $12 per share, which was negotiated up to $13.50 per share after an independent board committee checked out the deal.

Carter then gave the committee a set of artificially low management projects, while at the same time delivering a much more accurate picture to potential lenders involved in the takeover bid.

MOREHEAD, Ky. - For two months since the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the country, a clerk in a rural Kentucky county has refused to issue any marriage licenses, citing her Christian faith and constitutional right to religious freedom.

On Thursday, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis' office refused to issue a marriage license to another couple, William Smith Jr. and James Yates. It was their third attempt to get a license.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning had already ordered Davis to issue marriage licenses two weeks ago. He later delayed that ruling until Aug. 31 or until the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling. The appeals court did so on Wednesday, denying Davis' appeal.

But a deputy clerk in Davis' office told Smith and Yates on Thursday that the office believes Bunning's delay remains in effect until Aug. 31. He refused to give his name or give them a license.

Arizona is severing ties with a private prison operator over what the state says was a string of security and training lapses that led to violent riots in July.

Gov. Doug Ducey announced the action against Management and Training Corp. on Wednesday after the state released a scathing report about numerous issues at the prison. Ducey says what happened at the prison was "frightening, disturbing and completely unacceptable."

The unrest began July 1 in a minimum-security unit when private corrections officers tried to stop an inmate-on-inmate assault. A full-blown riot broke out the next day in another unit.

The riot left some housing units so badly damaged that more than 1,100 prisoners had to be moved to other facilities. Nine corrections officers suffered minor injuries.