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The president reminded Second Amendment supporters on Tuesday night that they would "need an F-16" to oppose the American government. Biden underlined the idea that Americans do not need AR-15s in his speech at a California fundraiser event where he discussed gun violence in the country. Biden emphasized that "we must change." The majority of Americans concur that there is no need for a weapon of war, so there are many things we can modify. I support the Second Amendment. I spent six years at law school and four years teaching it. And what's this? It does not state that you may possess any firearms you like. It claims there are some weapons you simply cannot own. Even during when it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon. You can’t own a machine gun.… No, I’m serious." ""You know, I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is — you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if [you] want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15," he added. Biden further asserted that the AR-15's widespread use among firearm manufacturers is due to its low cost of production and huge margins of profit. "You know one of the reasons why the AR-15 is so strongly supported by so many folks in that — in that industry? Number one, it’s the cheapest weapon to make and it’s the highest profit motive they have for any weapon that is made. It makes more money to sell an AR-15 than any other weapon you can buy," he said. Similar to earlier this year, when he told those gathered at the National Action Network's annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in Washington that those who support the use of AR-15s will need a much larger arsenal to stand a chance against the government, Biden said the same thing on Tuesday. More on this story from - © Copyright ASEAN NOW 2023-06-22

The UK had one of the worst increases in death rates of major European economies during the Covid pandemic, BBC analysis has found. Death rates in the UK were more than 5% higher on average each year of the pandemic than in the years just before it, largely driven by a huge death toll in the first year. That was above the increase seen in France, Spain or Germany, but below Italy and significantly lower than the US. Comparing death rates across countries Back in April and May 2020, the UK was seeing one of the worst waves of Covid deaths in the world. But Prof Sir Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, warned against international comparisons of Covid deaths too early in the pandemic.

A good reminder for people that this can and does happen ! its not just bar stories. Keep your paperwork etc up-to-date to avoid problems.

Following a significant explosion in central Paris' Latin Quarter, police have reported that two persons are still missing and seven others are in critical condition. The explosion caused buildings to catch fire, littered a roadway with debris, and blasted a plume of black smoke across the French capital, injuring at least 30 people in total. Additionally, it blew out windows and brought down the popular with international students exterior of the Paris American Academy design school. A fire was reported in Rue Saint-Jacques in the fifth arrondissement of Paris, close to the Jardin Du Luxembourg and the Sorbonne University, according to interior minister Gerald Darmanin. Edouard Civel, the local deputy mayor, mentioned a gas explosion on Twitter, and French witnesses confirmed this. More on this story from -- © Copyright ASEAN NOW 2023-06-22

See. I met this bird down by the beach officer !

David Lee, 40, told the police that he was looking for the number of a vet and that he thought the seagull had been hurt. However, he was watching pornography at the time of the incident, according to the police investigation. A man who admitted having sex with a newborn seagull he had caught while kneeling over it was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison. David Lee, 40, performed the deed on himself while holding the bird between his legs. He was at the moment watching porn. The event, which occurred in a Sunderland backstreet in August of last year, was captured on CCTV. Lee claimed he was attempting to help the bird because he thought it was injured when he was apprehended at a nearby takeout. He stated that he was instead looking for a vet's phone number at the time, denying that he was watching pornography. -- © Copyright ASEAN NOW 2023-06-22

Numerous recent events, including the spy balloon that flew over the United States and tensions over Taiwan, have strained relations between China and the United States. China calls Joe Biden's remarks about Xi Jinping, the country's leader, "extremely absurd and irresponsible." The most recent altercation occurs shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns from a trip to Beijing with the intention of easing tensions in the increasingly strained international relationship. Diplomatic ties have deteriorated over the past few months as a result of things like the spy balloon that flew over the US and collected data from military sites and the discovery of secret Chinese so-called police stations on American soil. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, stated that President Biden's remarks at a California fundraiser "go totally against facts, seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China's political dignity." At a daily briefing, Ms. Mao stated, "It is a blatant political provocation." More about this story from -- © Copyright ASEAN NOW 2023-06-22

Here is Part two......

Weeks into Ukraine's military offensive to retake areas occupied by Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged that battlefield progress has been "slower than desired." "Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It's not," he told the BBC. "What's at stake is people's lives." Ukraine claims that its counteroffensive has retaken eight villages in the Zaporizhzhia region in the south and Donetsk in the east. According to Mr. Zelensky, Russian forces had mined 200,000 square kilometers (77,220 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, making the military push difficult. Mr. Zelensky went on to say, "Whatever some might want, including attempts to pressure us, with all due respect, we will advance on the battlefield the way we deem best," More on this story from

Titanic sub search : Banging picked up by sonar devices deployed by Canadian air force The US Coastguard says remote underwater vehicles have been redeployed after banging noises were heard in the search for the missing Titan submersible, which last night had just 40 hours of oxygen left. Sky News

US President Joe Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator at a fundraiser in California. His remarks come a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Mr Xi for talks in Beijing, which were aimed at easing tensions between the two superpowers. Mr Xi said some progress had been made in Beijing, while Mr Blinken indicated both sides were open to more talks. China is yet to respond to Mr Biden's comments. President Biden, at the fundraiser on Tuesday night local time, also said Mr Xi was embarrassed over the recent tensions around a Chinese spy balloon that had been blown off course over the US. "The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn't know it was there," Mr Biden said. FULL STORY

According to police, most of the victims burned to death. Riot could be linked to corruption or gang control within the prison, officials said. A riot at a women's prison in Honduras has left at least 41 dead, most of them burned to death, a Honduran police official said. Authorities discovered 25 burnt corpses and are working to identify the bodies, a spokesperson said. Inmates were also reportedly shot at the Centro Femenino de Adaptacion Social (CEFAS) prison, situated in the town of Tamara, 30 miles from the capital Tegucigalpa. FULL STORY

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Divisive social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, have been charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women, prosecutors in Romania said Tuesday. Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said prosecutors filed the charges against the brothers, who are both British-U.S. dual citizens, along with two Romanian women in a court in the capital Bucharest. In a statement, the agency said the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania as well as the United States and Britain. It alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been charged with failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon and has reached an agreement with the Justice Department, according to a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware. As part of the agreement, made public Tuesday, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and is expected to reach an agreement with prosecutors on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user. It is somewhat unusual to resolve a federal criminal case at the same time the charges are filed in court, though it is not totally unheard of.

Judge Aileen Cannon has set a date for the trial in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. The Trump-appointed judge has signed a court order listing the trial as starting on 14 August of this year in Fort Pierce, Florida. The news comes the morning after the former president denied that he ever possessed a secret document about attacking Iran despite the fact a recording exists that had him discussing a document he kept from his presidency. Mr Trump spoke in an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey less than a week after he pleaded not guilty to 37 charges in a federal court in Miami at his arraignment. A federal grand jury had indicted him for allegedly willfully mishandling classified documents, obstruction of justice and making false statements. The former president was also confronted by Baier over his insistence that he won the 2020 election — which he did not, as the Fox News host made clear in a testy exchange. Voters may be growing sick of Mr Trump as well. In a newpoll, voters were most likely to describe Donald Trump in one word: a “criminal”. STORY AND VIDEO OF INTERVIEW.

President Joe Biden’s son will plead guilty to three federal charges, the Justice Department said in a court filing on Tuesday morning Hunter Biden has reached a plea deal with the Department of Justice, agreeing to plead guilty to three federal charges following an investigation into his taxes. President Joe Biden’s son will plead guilty to three federal charges, the Justice Department said in a court filing on Tuesday morning. STORY

Bruce Lee’s long, violent journey to immortality: ‘He knew the star should always be the boss’ As many of the martial arts star’s classic films are re-released in cinemas – to mark 50 years since his death – Tom Fordy salutes a man who overcame incredible odds to become one of the biggest icons in cultural history Bruce Lee wanted to be the biggest box office star in the world. He said as much to his friend and martial arts student, Stirling Silliphant. Lee announced that he would one day be a bigger star than both Steve McQueen and James Coburn, A-list actors who were also students of Lee’s. Silliphant – an Oscar-winning screenwriter – replied in the negative: “You are Chinese in a white man’s world. There’s no way.” Silliphant’s words – more tough love than outward racism – summed up the battle that Lee faced in Hollywood. US executives did not believe that an Asian actor would be a bankable leading man. Lee’s “bigger than McQueen and Coburn” comment (though not the only time he would voice such bold aspirations) came amid frustrations about a passion project, The Silent Flute, which failed to materialise in his lifetime – one of numerous unmade, unfinished or fallen-through projects. FULL STORY

iPhone 15 will get upgrade that could give a hint of the Apple Vision Pro, report claims Apple’s new iPhone 15 will feature at least one new upgrade aimed at the upcoming Vision Pro headset, according to a report. The new iPhone is due out in September, and Apple has said little about it. But as the release nears, more reports are leaking out from the company’s supply chain that indicate its features. One of those may be a new “ultra wide band” or UWB chip that is looking ahead to Apple’s Vision Pro, according to a new report from reputable analyst Ming-chi Kuo. The chip will allow the phone and the headset to be able to work together, he suggested, as part of a “more competitive ecosystem”. “The ecosystem is one of the key success factors for Vision Pro, including the integration with other Apple hardware products, and related main hardware specifications are Wi-Fi and UWB,” he wrote on a post on Twitter. FULL STORY

Himalayan glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates and could lose up to 80 per cent of their volume this century if the Earth continues to heat, said a new report. Changes to the glaciers, snow and permafrost of the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region driven by global heating are “unprecedented and largely irreversible”, said the report released on Tuesday Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod). The Himalayan glaciers have, in fact, disappeared 65 per cent faster since 2010 than in the previous decade, it said. The unprecedented melting has an impact on over 2 billion people that depend on rivers flowing from these mountains for freshwater sources, as well as the communities living in the region that are more at threat of extreme weather events. The report comes as a marine heatwave in the northern Atlantic region breaks records and worries scientists around the world. FULL STORY

The climate crisis is taking an enormous toll on Europe, which was ravaged by extreme heat, drought, wildfires and glacier melt last year, a new analysis has concluded. A joint report by the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found that last summer was the hottest on record for Europe and caused more than 16,000 excess deaths, according to the report. “Unfortunately, this cannot be considered a one-off occurrence or an oddity of the climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, in a statement. He added that current understanding of the climate system “informs us that these kinds of events are part of a pattern that will make heat stress extremes more frequent and more intense across the region.” Dry canals, low rivers and shrunken lakes: Europe braces for severe drought amid winter heatwave Several countries, including the UK, Spain, Switzerland and Italy, saw their hottest years on record in 2022. Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, according to the report, and has been warming twice as fast as the global average for the last four decades. The continent was not only hot but also extremely dry, with big implications for agriculture and water supply. Many parts of the continent saw very low levels of precipitation last year, with France experiencing its driest January-to-September period on record. In Spain, water reserves plunged to just over 40% of capacity, the report found .FULL STORY

Teachers at kindergarten centre in Taipei allegedly give children phenobarbital to ‘make them more compliant’ Scores of parents in Taiwan have raised alarm over reports that teachers of a school have been drugging kindergarten students. Local authorities have launched a criminal investigation into claims that teachers at a kindergarten school in Taipei were giving students cough syrups like phenobarbital and benzodiazepines. On Sunday, more than 1,000 parents held a protest at the Civic Plaza outside New Taipei City Hall and demanded transparency. The demonstrating parents said they wanted stricter punishments for child abusers and more comprehensive protection mechanisms at preschools. Reports said the police have not yet ascertained why children were allegedly fed the sedative and often addictive syrups. FULL STORY