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Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday denied making a promise to former President Trump that the House would vote to expunge his impeachments, shooting down a report that said the GOP leader pledged the vote as a way to temper tensions with the former president. “There’s no deal,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday, “but I’ve been very clear from long before when I voted against impeachments, that they did it for purely political purposes.” “I support expungement, but there’s no deal out there,” he added. His comments contradict a Thursday morning report from Politico Playbook that McCarthy assured Trump that the House would vote to erase his impeachments, citing a source close to Trump and familiar with the conversation. In the report, the vow was characterized as part of the Speaker’s effort to reconcile with Trump in the wake of an interview late last month that landed him in hot water with the former president; McCarthy had said he was unsure if Trump was the “strongest” person to beat President Biden in 2024. FULL STORY

A House hearing Thursday featuring Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought the complicated debate about balancing free speech with fighting misinformation to center stage. Some of the debate played out in real time among members of Congress and the hearing witness. A House hearing Thursday featuring Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought the complicated debate about balancing free speech with fighting misinformation to center stage. Some of the debate played out in real time among members of Congress and the hearing witness. “If you want to cut him off and censor him some more, you’re welcome to do it,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said, eliciting laughs in the room. Kennedy’s extensive history of sharing anti-vaccine views online was the center of Thursday’s debate over how social media companies moderate content. FULL STORY

Apple says it will remove services such as FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken security if new proposals are made law and acted upon. The government is seeking to update the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016. It wants messaging services to clear security features with the Home Office before releasing them to customers. The act lets the Home Office demand security features are disabled, without telling the public. Under the update, this would have to be immediate. Currently, there has to be a review, there can also be an independent oversight process and a technology company can appeal before taking any action. Because of the secrecy surrounding these demands, little is known about how many have been issued and whether they have been complied with. But many messaging services currently offer end-to-end encryption - so messages can be unscrambled by only the devices sending and receiving them. FULL STORY

The White House has confirmed that Ukraine is using US cluster bombs against Russian forces in the country. National Security Spokesman John Kirby said initial feedback suggested they were being used "effectively" on Russian defensive positions and operations. Cluster bombs scatter multiple bomblets and are banned by more than 100 states due to their threat to civilians. The US agreed to supply them to boost Ukrainian ammunition supplies. Ukraine has promised the bombs will only be used to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers. "They are using them appropriately," Mr Kirby said. "They're using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia's defensive formations and Russia's defensive manoeuvring. I think I can leave it at that." The US decided to send cluster bombs after Ukraine warned that it was running out of ammunition during its summer counter-offensive, which has been slower and more costly than many had hoped. President Joe Biden called the decision "very difficult", while its allies the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain opposed their use. FULL STORY

A video of two tribal women being paraded naked and subjected to blatant acts of sexual assault by a mob of men in the violence-hit northeastern state of Manipur has triggered outrage in India. The widely shared footage led prime minister Narendra Modi to address the country in some of his first remarks since the conflict broke out in Manipur, saying the incident “shamed India” and that the guilty won’t be spared. “I assure the nation, the law will take its course with all its might. What happened with the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven,” he said ahead of the opening of the monsoon session of the Indian parliament. The incident reportedly took place on 4 May in the early stages of the violence that erupted between the Meitei and Kuki communities after some Kukis protested against calls by the mostly Hindu Meitei community to be granted protected tribal status. Since then the state has been effectively torn in two, with more than 140 people killed and over 40,000 displaced as both communities engaged in attacks on each other’s residences and vehicles, burning down churches and temples. Full Story

The Home Office refuses to remove veteran’s Rwanda deportation threat despite the policy being ruled illegal The White House has said it will make sure Afghan veterans who supported the US are taken care of – while the British government continues to stall in the case of an Afghan pilot who has been threatened with deportation to Rwanda. The pilot, who risked his life on combat missions in support of coalition forces, has been left in limbo and has been threatened with removal after he arrived in Britain on a small boat because of the lack of safe legal routes. After the UK rejected his first application to remain, Washington is now considering his case after his US supervisor made a personal recommendation and described him as a “true patriot to his nation”. Full Story

Summer at the movies is a time for big-budget blockbusters, but this year an independent drama with religious undertones is both competing with the likes of Indiana Jones and causing a political stir. Sound of Freedom tells the story of a government agent who busts a child sexual abuse ring operating in Colombia. The main character is based on Timothy Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent who founded an anti-human trafficking organisation, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR). He goes undercover, and some of the gritty action scenes in the Colombian jungle wouldn't look out of place in a more conventional Hollywood flick. The review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a critic score of 77%. But this is not a typical summer blockbuster. A string of conspiratorial comments by the leading actor Jim Caviezel and the movie's themes have turned the film into another culture war flashpoint. FULL ARTICLE

Wheat prices have risen sharply on global markets after Russia said it would treat ships heading for Ukrainian ports as potential military targets. Moscow pulled out of a UN deal on Monday that ensured safe passage for grain shipments crossing the Black Sea. For the past three nights Russia has bombarded Ukraine's grain facilities in Odesa and other cities. Moscow also warned that from Thursday any ships going there would be seen as siding with "the Kyiv regime". White House spokesman Adam Hodge suggested Russia was planning to hit civilian ships and blame Ukraine. Russia had laid more sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports, he said, as part of a co-ordinated Russian effort to justify attacking civilian ships. The Kremlin did not immediately respond to the allegation. Wheat prices on the European stock exchange soared by 8.2% on Wednesday from the previous day, to €253.75 (£220; $284) per tonne, while corn prices were up 5.4%. US wheat futures jumped 8.5% - their highest daily rise since just after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. FULL STORY

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, who contributed to President Biden's 2020 campaign, "refused to bring charges" on Hunter Biden for tax evasion, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who confirmed this on Wednesday. During the contentious House Oversight Committee hearing into claims the Department of Justice politically interfered with an investigation into Hunter Biden, Shapley stated, "The Justice Department allowed the president's political appointees to weigh in on whether to charge the president's son." "I watched U.S. Attorney [David] Weiss tell a room full of senior FBI and IRS senior leaders on October 7, 2022, that he was not the deciding person on whether charges were filed," he wrote. "After U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, appointed by President Biden, refused to bring charges in March 2022." U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves contributed to Biden's 2020 campaign while employed at the law firm DLA Piper prior to his nomination and confirmation to the job in 2021, according to Federal Election Commission documents originally published by the Daily Caller. The $1,500 in donations was given during the Democratic presidential primaries in April 2020 and May 2020. The focus of the House investigation has been on the allegations made by whistleblowers Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that there was a pattern of "slow-walking investigative steps" into Hunter Biden, including directives not to speak with him at his home, informing the president's son and staff about the ongoing investigations, and postponing enforcement actions in the months leading up to the 2020 election. Copyright 07.20.23

A new indictment of former President Trump in connection to his actions surrounding Jan. 6 could pose a real problem for his 2024 White House campaign as he faces potential criminal charges for the third time this year, some Republicans say. Trump said Tuesday that he’s a target of a federal investigation, which generally signals an indictment is on the way. His legal issues so far appear to have helped more than hurt him with GOP primary voters, but the piling up of legal cases could cause real problems in a general election, Republicans say. And that could lead to the reelection of President Biden, despite his troubles. “It’s hard to think this does anything to improve his numbers in a general election,” said Brian Seitchik, a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign staffer. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted nearly two years after the riots at the Capitol found more than 60 percent of Americans believed Trump bore a lot or some responsibility for the events on Jan. 6. That includes many independent and moderate voters who Trump will need to win over from Biden next November. FULL STORY

More than 4 in 10 Americans believe the Supreme Court has become too conservative, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. The poll, published Wednesday, found that 43 percent of respondents believe that the Supreme Court is too conservative, while 13 percent of those surveyed think that the court is too liberal and 33 percent believe that the current ideology of the Supreme Court is just about right. This is a change from a September 2021 Quinnipiac University poll, in which 34 percent thought the Supreme Court was too conservative, 34 percent thought it was about right and 19 percent thought it was too liberal. Along political party lines, 80 percent of Democrat respondents now believe that the Supreme Court is too conservative, compared with 38 percent of independent respondents and 8 percent of Republicans. In contrast, 25 percent of Republican respondents believe that the Supreme Court is too liberal, compared with 12 percent of independent respondents and 5 percent of Democrats. FULL STORY

Republicans and Democrats sparred over the significance of the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing that featured two IRS whistleblowers, with the GOP arguing the president’s son was spared from true justice while Democrats argued he was thoroughly investigated by a team formed under the former president and led by a Trump-appointed attorney. IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley, who investigated Biden, expressed frustration over how U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss and other prosecutors handled the investigation, alleging authorities slow-walked the case and showed preferential treatment to the president’s son. The House Ways and Means Committee had first privately interviewed the two whistleblowers, releasing transcripts just days after prosecutors reached an agreement with Biden to plead guilty to two charges of willful failure to pay taxes. The nearly six-hour hearing relayed little information not already covered in the nearly 400 pages of testimony from the two men, with the whistleblowers saying they could not answer questions outside the scope of that testimony. FULL STORY

Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's Black Sea coast have destroyed 60,000 tonnes of grain and damaged storage infrastructure, officials say. Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said a "considerable amount" of export infrastructure was out of operation. Russia has pulled out of a deal guaranteeing safe passage for exports across the Black Sea. Later on Wednesday Russia's President Putin accused the West of using the grain deal as "political blackmail". He added he would consider rejoining the international agreement, in place since last summer, only "if all principles under which Russia agreed to participate in the deal are fully taken into account and fulfilled". His comments came shortly after Russia's defence ministry declared that from midnight on Wednesday night (21:00 GMT), any ships heading to Ukrainian ports would be viewed as potential carriers of military cargo and party to the conflict. Some north-western and south-eastern areas of the Black Sea would be temporarily dangerous for shipping, it added. Russia began targeting Ukraine's ports in the early hours of Tuesday within hours of its withdrawal from the grain deal. FULL STORY

A shooting has left two people dead in the centre of Auckland, New Zealand, hours before the city is due to open the Fifa Women's World Cup. Six other people, including police officers, were injured and the gunman is also dead after the incident at 07:22 (19:22 GMT) on a construction site in the central business district. PM Chris Hipkins said the attack was not being seen as an act of terrorism. The tournament would go ahead as planned, he said. The public, he added, could be assured police had neutralised the threat and there was no ongoing risk after the incident on Queen Street. No political or ideological motive for the attack had been identified, the prime minister said. The gunman, he said, had been armed with a pump-action shotgun. Mr Hipkins thanked "the brave men and women of the New Zealand police who ran into the gunfire, straight into harm's way, in order to save the lives of others". "These kinds of situations move fast and the actions of those who risk their lives to save others are nothing short of heroic," he added. FULL STORY

A landmark referendum backed by the government would give Indigenous people constitutional recognition and greater say on legislation and policy affecting them. A proposal by the Australian government to recognize the country’s Indigenous people in the constitution has inflamed a culture war and set off divisive debates — including among Indigenous people themselves. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor government is backing a landmark referendum to enshrine in the Australian Constitution an Indigenous body — known as a “Voice to Parliament” — to advise the government on legislation and policy affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who make up almost 4% of Australia’s population of 26 million. Unlike other former British colonies such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand, Australia has no treaty with its Indigenous people, who are not mentioned in the 1901 constitution. Like Indigenous peoples in the United States and elsewhere, Indigenous Australians fare much worse than their fellow countrymen on life expectancy, incarceration rates and other measures of socioeconomic well-being. FULL STORY dum backed by the government would give Indigenous people constitutional recognition and greater say on legislation and policy affecting them.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The number of people who died in connection with Kenya’s doomsday cult has crossed the 400 mark as detectives exhumed 12 more bodies on Monday believed to be followers of a pastor who ordered them to fast to death in order to meet Jesus. Pastor Paul Mackenzie, who is linked to the cult based in a forested area in Malindi, coastal Kenya, is in police custody, along with 36 other suspects. All have yet to be charged. Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha on Monday said the number of those who died has risen to 403, with 95 people rescued. Last month, some suspects and people rescued started a hunger strike in prison and at the rescue center, prompting the prosecutor to take them to court for attempting to kill themselves. Most of them agreed to resume eating, but one suspect died in custody. Some 613 people have so far been reported missing to Kenya Red Cross officers stationed in Malindi town. Detectives are still finding mass graves. FULL STORY

North Korea hasn't been much of a foreign policy priority for Joe Biden's administration since he took office in January 2021, but recent escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula are moving it up the list. Now, with the detention of a US soldier who crossed the border in the demilitarised zone (DMZ), the situation could be turning into a full-blown crisis, the type of which the Biden administration has been trying to avoid. The incident comes on the day that a US nuclear missile submarine, the USS Kentucky, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan - a visible demonstration of US military strength that had angered the North Koreans. The move was a US response to more than a hundred new North Korean missile tests over the past few years that suggest the nation's nuclear-delivery technologies continue to advance - possibly putting the US mainland well within range of a North Korean strike. North Korea is also reportedly considering a new nuclear weapons test, which would be the first since a 140 kiloton blast in September 2017. FULL STORY

Donald Trump has said he expects to be arrested by a federal inquiry into the US Capitol riot and efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. The ex-president said in a social media post he had been informed by special counsel Jack Smith on Sunday night that he was a target of their investigation. Mr Trump posted that he was told to report to a grand jury, "which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment". The special counsel did not immediately respond to media inquiries. Such an indictment would be Mr Trump's third for alleged criminal offences, including 37 counts brought by Mr Smith's team in June accusing the president of mishandling classified documents. Mr Trump has also been charged in New York City with falsifying business records in 2016 hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He is due to stand trial in that case next March, while a date for the classified documents case is still being contested by the president's lawyers. Michigan charges 16 in fake elector scheme What charges might Trump face in January 6 probe? In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump claimed that he had been sent a letter "stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment." FULL STORY

Summary A US soldier is being held in North Korea after crossing the border from South Korea without authorisation Private 2nd Class Travis King was being escorted back to the US for disciplinary reasons before he apparently gave his escort the slip at Incheon Airport He joined a tour group at the border where he was seen laughing before running into the North "I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didn't come back, I realised it wasn't a joke," a witness said later The incident is being investigated by US Forces Korea, a senior American commander said The US military has had no contact with the soldier since he crossed the border, the commander confirmed FULL STORY

From a single toaster evolved a world of more than eight billion connected ‘things’ – the Internet of Things. In 1990, the information and telecommunications industry was in its infancy. Only three million people, sharing 300,000 computers, had access to the internet. The first, brick-sized mobile phones stored a handful of numbers: they might have enabled an hour’s conversation, but offered neither colour, motion or information. Mark Zuckerberg was six years old; Sergey Brin was still in high school; Tim Berners-Lee had just laid out his vision for a worldwide web. Then at a networking conference named Interop, in San Jose, California, engineers John Romkey and Simon Hackett demonstrated a slice of the future: a Sunbeam toaster hooked up to the new-fangled internet. For all its unsightly tangle of wire, it had just one control that switched the power on and off – a year later the engineers would add a miniature crane to manoeuvre the bread into place. FULL ARTICLE

Laura Ingraham discussed how a declining President Biden has led to a declining America and how the Democratic party is "stuck" with him on "The Ingraham Angle.' BIDEN'S NIBBLES ON YOUNG GIRL JUST HIS LATEST WEIRD INTERACTION WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S KIDS LAURA INGRAHAM: Now, it seems to me that the Democrats know they're in one big ol' hole. Now, first, having Joe Biden as their nominee, it's very risky. And at the same time, not having him as their nominee, maybe even riskier. Now, how did this happen? Well, during the 2020 campaign, when everyone in the press already knew Biden was failing. Well, they propped him up in a full weekend at Biden-style production. They and the DNC knew then what they know now. They could market him, though, as kind of an older and more stable than the new far-left Democrats. And they would reassure seniors and minorities and independents. But now what? He's only gotten worse. And America knows it. And now the country and the party is stuck with someone who literally everyone knows is a figurehead president. Joe's not calling the shots on any major question other than maybe whether it'll have Jell-O or pudding for dessert. FULL STORY

Taiwan’s vice president will transit through the U.S. next month, travel likely to draw intense pushback from China and further strain relations with Washington. Vice President Lai Ching-te, who is also a presidential candidate, will stop in the U.S. on his way to attend the inauguration of Paraguay’s president in mid-August, the island’s presidential office said at a news conference Monday. Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Tah-ray Yui, speaking at the press conference, did not say which city Lai will transit through but that the trip will be “planned according to precedent set by previous trips to South and Central America, for which transit stops in the U.S. were arranged.” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen transited through the U.S. in April on her way to official meetings in Guatemala and Belize. While Tsai met with U.S. lawmakers in New York and California, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the “transit” description gives it the veneer of an unofficial and private visit. FULL STORY

The Georgia Supreme Court Monday declined to take up an effort from former President Donald Trump to quash an investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. The unanimous decision from the court’s nine justices was swiftly delivered just days after Trump’s legal team asked the court Friday to block an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D). Trump in March filed a motion to block Willis’s investigation, a matter that has not yet been decided by a lower court. The court called out Trump’s efforts as procedurally dubious, dismissing his team’s legal argument at every turn. “The Court has made clear that a petitioner cannot invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction as a way to circumvent the ordinary channels for obtaining the relief,” the justices wrote in the five-page opinion. “Petitioner has not shown that this case presents one of those extremely rare circumstances in which this Court’s original jurisdiction should be invoked, and therefore, the petition is dismissed.” FULL STORY

Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error. Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the west African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix. Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers. The Pentagon said it had taken steps to address the issue. According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago. Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails. None were marked as classified, but, according to the newspaper, they included medical data, maps of US military facilities, financial records and the planning documents for official trips as well as some diplomatic messages. FULL STORY