Special counsel Jack Smith to seek speedy trial and says January 6 was ‘fueled by lies’
University of Virginia political guru Larry Sabato took a look at the New York Times/Siena College poll released today, and what he found does not look good for Democrats:
The firm behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline said today that it expects work on the controversial natural gas conduit to be completed by the end of the year.
Continue reading...Fitch changed the country’s rating from AAA to AA+, citing fiscal deterioration and down-to-the wire debt ceiling negotiations
Rating agency Fitch downgraded the US government’s top credit rating on Tuesday, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors.
Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills. It is the second major rating agency after Standard & Poor’s to strip the US of its triple-A rating.
Continue reading...Cells taken without consent from cancer victim can reproduce indefinitely and were sold for unjust profit by Thermo Fisher Scientific, relatives argued
Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said.
The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey.
Continue reading...Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the latest criminal case before the former president that comes just weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information.
You can read the indictment here in full:
Continue reading...Past efforts to hold Trump accountable for the violence and his broader election subversion campaign have fallen short
Unlike Donald Trump’s first two indictments, the former president’s third set of criminal charges stands out as the first major legal effort to hold him accountable for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Pro-democracy experts welcomed the indictment, announced on Tuesday by the office of special counsel Jack Smith, as a victory for the rule of law that could help fortify America’s election systems in the face of ongoing threats from Trump and his allies.
Continue reading...A brief downpour helped crews on the ground, but experts warn they could face unstable wind conditions that could blow fire back at them
Firefighters have managed to partially contain a giant wildfire in the Mojave desert that scorched tens of thousands of acres of scrub and sent smoke across the Las Vegas Strip.
The York fire was mapped at roughly 125 sq miles (323.7 sq km) on Tuesday, with 23% containment, making it the largest wildfire of the season in California.
Continue reading...Relief expected to be brief with forecasts of highs above 110F this week. Plus, the man who hopes to shut down the coal industry with his drone
Good morning.
Phoenix’s record stretch of daily highs over 110F (43.3C) ended yesterday as cooling monsoon rains tempered the dangerous heatwave that suffocated the American south-west throughout July.
Are people still in danger? Potentially, yes. More than 50 million Americans remain under a heat advisory amid one of the hottest summers recorded, and a heatwave continues to affect swathes of the country.
What is happening in the south-west? The hot and dry weather in the south-west of the US has set off a wave of wildfires. California and Nevada are battling a large blaze that is uncontrolled. Another, which originated in Washington state, has spread into Canada, forcing residents in the town of Osoyoos, British Columbia, to flee their homes.
What has Ukraine said about the drone attacks? Ukraine has not acknowledged responsibility for the attacks but the strikes came two days after the Ukrainian president said the war was coming to Russia, after three drones were shot down over Moscow on Sunday. “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases. This is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” Volodymr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday.
What else is happening? The Russian defence ministry says it successfully repelled a unmanned boat drone attack on two of its ships in the Black Sea fleet – the Sergey Kotov and the Vasily Bykov.
Continue reading...The National Shooting Sports Foundation has been aggressively pushing gun manufacturers’ interests, and is starting to eclipse its bigger rival
A business trade group representing 10,000 gunmakers, dealers and other firearm firms is emerging as a rising force in the US and starting to eclipse – in some respects – the might of the powerful but scandal-plagued National Rifle Association.
Meet the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s conservative and aggressive lobbying group. Its range of activities are broad but always geared to zealously and single-mindedly preserving and extending the power of the gun industry.
Continue reading...Fears of new high death toll this year as prolonged heatwave causes spike in hospitalizations from people who work outside
The punishing heatwaves that have scorched much of the US could result in a record number of heat-related deaths this year, experts have warned, amid a spike in hospitalizations from collapsing outdoor workers.
Among those needing hospital treatment are heat-exhausted hikers and even people who have suffered severe burns from touching blistering concrete and asphalt.
Continue reading...President had previously failed to publicly mention Navy, daughter from Hunter Biden’s relationship with Lunden Roberts
For the first time in an interview, Joe Biden acknowledged he has seven grandchildren, including Hunter Biden’s four-year-old daughter Navy.
“I have seven grandkids,” the president said, “five of ’em old enough to talk on the phone, you know, every day I either text or call them.”
Continue reading...The police had been searching for the driver of the car, when a person of interest came forward and was taken into custody
A man drove a sport-utility vehicle into six people in North Carolina who were described as migrant workers in what “appears to be an intentional assault”, police have said.
All six victims were taken to hospital after the apparent attack, and have since been released.
Continue reading...Reprieve expected to be brief, with the forecast calling for highs again above 110F for several days later in the week
Phoenix’s record stretch of daily highs over 110F (43.3C) ended Monday as cooling monsoon rains slightly tempered the dangerous heatwave that suffocated the American south-west throughout July.
The region, from Texas across New Mexico and Arizona and into California’s desert, has been grappling with historic heat since June. Phoenix and its suburbs sweltered more intensely than most, with several records including the 31 consecutive days of 110F days. The previous record was 18 straight days, set in 1974.
Continue reading...Cloud, who portrayed Fezco ‘Fez’ O’Neill in the HBO teen drama, had recently lost his father
The actor Angus Cloud, best known for his role on HBO’s teen drama Euphoria, has died at age 25, his family confirmed to media on Monday.
Cloud’s publicist, Cait Bailey, said Cloud died Monday at his family home in Oakland, California. No cause of death was given.
Continue reading...The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.
A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.
At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.
Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.
Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.
No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.
What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).
The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.
Continue reading...Lori Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of murdering a romantic rival and will serve three consecutive life terms
Lori Vallow Daybell, an Idaho mother convicted of murdering her two youngest children and a romantic rival, was sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday.
Vallow Daybell was found guilty in May of killing her children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 16, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband’s previous wife. Vallow Daybell will serve three life sentences one after the other, the judge said.
Continue reading...Animal, found lounging in a Burbank neighborhood, climbed over a wall and headed back after it was done relaxing
With temperatures soaring across the US, people and animals alike are looking for a place to find relief. In southern California, one bear sought to beat the heat by taking a dip in a hot tub.
On Friday, police in Burbank responded to a report of a bear sighting in a residential neighborhood. The bear was filmed calmly lounging in the hot tub. After a short dip, the bear climbed over a wall and headed to a tree behind the home, police said in a statement.
Continue reading...Officers shot and wounded armed man who fired shots and was trying to gain entry to Margolin Hebrew Academy, police say
Police in Memphis said they had likely prevented a mass shooting after they shot a man who earlier was reported to have opened fire at a Jewish day school in the Tennessee city.
In a statement and news conference, local police said they had responded to a report of a white man with a handgun shooting outside the Margolin Hebrew Academy and trying to gain entry to the building.
Continue reading...Ukraine and allies seek to draw countries such as Brazil and India off the fence and back Kyiv’s proposals for ‘just and durable peace’
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, is expected to attend a meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend at which Ukraine and its allies will try to persuade countries from the global south to back Kyiv’s proposals for ending the war.
According to officials involved in planning for the meeting, it is primarily aimed at drawing neutral countries such as Brazil and India off the fence in their approach to the Russian invasion.
Continue reading...US tree nurseries do not grow enough trees and lack the plant species diversity to meet ambitious plans, research says
In an effort to slash carbon emissions and provide relief from extreme heat, governments across the nation and globally have pledged to plant trees. But the US is not equipped with the tree seedlings to furnish its own plans, according to a new study.
US tree nurseries do not grow nearly enough trees to bring ambitious planting schemes to fruition, and they also lack the plant species diversity those plans require, according to research published in the journal Bioscience on Monday,
Continue reading...Beta – or testing – site for ‘Save’ plan should take only 10 minutes to use and aims to cut undergraduate payments in half
The Joe Biden White House is launching a beta – or testing – website as part of its new income-driven student loan repayment plan, according to reports.
The site, which CNN first reported on Sunday, comes as part of the president’s Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan, which was announced earlier this year after the supreme court struck down an earlier iteration of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
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