Republican congressman rebuked by senators for swearing at young pages

Bipartisan disapproval for Derrick Van Orden, who yelled and cursed at school-age Senate helpers during late-night Capitol tour

A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.

Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.

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Mitch McConnell should step down as Senate minority leader after freezing, GOP senator says

Questions remain around mental fitness of Republican Senate leader, 81, after health scare in public earlier this week

Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate who suffered a public health scare this week, should step down from the role he has filled since 2007, an unnamed GOP senator said.

McConnell, from Kentucky, remains “intellectually sharp” on “a whole host of issues including baseball”, the anonymous senator told NBC News.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Trump, DeSantis and top Republican candidates to share stage at Iowa event

Tim Scott, currently third in polling, will also be among 13 presidential hopefuls participating in Lincoln Dinner on Friday

Nearly every major Republican presidential candidate will share a stage in the early voting state of Iowa on Friday night, as Donald Trump continues to dominate in the polls despite his numerous legal liabilities.

Thirteen candidates will appear at the Iowa Republican party’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner fundraiser, giving them an opportunity to address donors and local party leaders with less than six months left before the state’s crucial caucuses.

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Emmys 2023: awards likely postponed to next year due to Hollywood strikes

Vendors have reportedly been told the ceremony will be pushed as studios refuse to meet demands of actors and writers

Fox is expected to announce soon that the Emmy awards will be rescheduled to January next year due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes in Hollywood.

Variety first reported on Thursday that vendors for the ceremony have been informed of an imminent date change, but not given an exact date, while the Los Angeles Times cited an unnamed source familiar with the plans, who said Fox was planning to move the telecast date to January.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Randy Meisner, a founding member of the Eagles, dies aged 77

The bassist and vocalist, who sang the hit Take It to the Limit, died of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Randy Meisner, a founding member of the Eagles, has died at age 77, the band said on Thursday.

Meisner died on Wednesday night in Los Angeles of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the Eagles said in a statement.

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Trump faces more charges in classified documents case as second aide named

Prosecutors bring additional charges against former president as Mar-a-Lago worker Carlos De Oliveira named as third defendant

Federal prosecutors on Thursday expanded the indictment against Donald Trump for retaining national security documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, unveiling new charges against him and an employee over an attempt to destroy surveillance footage.

The new charges – filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Florida – were outlined in a superseding indictment that named Mar-a-Lago club maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira as the third co-defendant in the case. Trump’s valet Walt Nauta was previously indicted for obstruction with the former president last month.

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Oregon prison nurse guilty of sexually abusing nine women in custody

Tony Klein, 38, convicted of 21 of 23 federal charges and could face life imprisonment

A former nurse at women’s prison in Oregon was found guilty of sexually abusing nine women while they were in custody.

Tony Klein, 38, was convicted of 21 of the 23 federal charges, including 17 counts pertaining to sexual assault and four of making false statements under oath in a deposition.

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US-Saudi talks amid reports of far-reaching diplomatic plan for Middle East

But Jeddah’s demands for brokering an Israeli-Palestinian respite are reportedly a ‘non-starter’ and a ‘sucker’s bet’

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah, in what was reported to be part of a bid for an ambitious and far-reaching diplomatic breakthrough in the region.

The White House said Sullivan and the prince discussed on Thursday “initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world”.

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Changing Meta’s algorithms did not help US political polarization, study finds

Study of Facebook and Instagram data from 2020 election shows chronological lists had no measurable impact on polarization

The powerful algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram have increasingly been blamed for amplifying misinformation and political polarization. But a series of groundbreaking studies published on Thursday suggest addressing these challenges will require more than just tweaking the platforms’ software.

The four research papers, published in Science and Nature also reveal the extent of political echo chambers on Facebook, where conservatives and liberals rely on divergent sources of information, interact with opposing groups and consume distinctly different amounts of misinformation.

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Trump hit with further counts in classified documents case as second aide charged – as it happened

The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s new charges here and about Hunter Biden’s ongoing legal challenges here.

Joe Biden will soon speak on his administration’s efforts to protect workers from extreme heat, including by asking the labor department to issue a “hazard alert” as swaths of the US struggle with scorching temperatures.

“The hazard alert will reaffirm that workers have heat-related protections under federal law. As part of the alert, the Department of Labor will provide information on what employers can and should be doing now to protect their workers, help ensure employees are aware of their rights, including protections against retaliation, and highlight the steps the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is currently taking to protect workers,” the White House announced. “Additionally, the Department of Labor will ramp up enforcement of heat-safety violations, increasing inspections in high-risk industries like construction and agriculture, while OSHA continues to develop a national standard for workplace heat-safety rules.”

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Mother hails ‘miracle’ return of Arizona teen who went missing in 2019

Alicia Navarro, 18, showed up alone this week in a small town in Montana and identified herself

The mother of an Arizona teenager who has reappeared safe and well after going missing four years ago has hailed her return as a “miracle”.

Alicia Navarro, 18, vanished without a trace in 2019 but showed up alone this week in a small town in Montana about 40 miles from the Canadian border and identified herself, according to police in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb.

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US labor department condemns surge in child labor after teen dies on the job

Duvan Tomas Perez killed at slaughterhouse while department found 4,474 children working illegally since start of fiscal year

The US Department of Labor has decried a national surge in child labor as the agency has found thousands of violations and is currently investigating the death of a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala, Duvan Tomas Perez, who was killed on the job at a slaughterhouse this month in Mississippi, reported the New York Times.

Two other 16-year-olds have died on the job in the US this year. Michael Schuls was killed on 29 June while working for a sawmill in Wisconsin. He was attempting to unjam a wood stacking machine when he was caught and pinned by the conveyor belt. Will Hampton was died in Missouri on 8 June while working at a landfill when he was pinned between a tractor trailer rig and its trailer.

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China may be planning overseas naval bases in Asia and Africa, say analysts

Beijing believed to be aiming to rival US’s global maritime power and defeat western sanctions, report concludes

China’s military may be planning to build a host of overseas naval bases, as it hopes to protect shipping routes and strengthen its ability to resist sanctions from the US and its allies, analysis has found.

Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Bata in Equatorial Guinea and Gwadar in Pakistan are the three most likely locations for a Chinese naval base to be established in the next two to five years, according to an analysis by AidData, a US-based research institute, published on Wednesday. The report’s authors considered the amount of development financing issued by Chinese state-owned banks to port projects, the strategic value of existing infrastructure and strong relationships with host country governments, among other factors, to come up with a list of eight leading options for future Chinese naval bases.

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US economic growth speeds up in second quarter and weekly jobless claims fall

Economy is being anchored by labor market and businesses are boosting investment, potentially holding off a recession

The US economy grew faster than expected in the second quarter as labor market resilience underpinned consumer spending, while businesses boosted investment in equipment, potentially keeping a much-feared recession at bay.

Gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of economic growth – increased at a 2.4% annualized rate last quarter, the commerce department announced in its advance estimate of second-quarter GDP on Thursday. The economy grew at a 2.0% pace in the January-March quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 1.8% rate.

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More than 170m Americans under heat alerts as heatwave expands

Between 250 and 275 million will face heat indexes of 90F as heatwave moves into parts of Great Plains, midwest and north-east

Over 170 million Americans are under heat alerts this week, according to the National Weather Service, as a heat wave that has affected the southern US for weeks has expanded into parts of the Great Plains, midwest and north-east US.

Between 250 and 275 million people in the US will face heat indexes of at least 90F (32C), as the US braces for the hottest weather of the summer averaged across the country.

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‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president

Rightwing groups penned a conservative wish list of proposals for the next conservative president to gut environmental protections

An alliance of rightwing groups has crafted an extensive presidential proposal to bolster the planet-heating oil and gas industry and hamstring the energy transition, it has emerged.

Against a backdrop of record-breaking heat and floods this year, the $22m endeavor, Project 2025, was convened by the notorious rightwing, climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch.

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Meta stock surges after company reports 11% rise in revenue

Revenue grew to $32bn, marking company’s most profitable quarter since 2021, as news sends stocks surging by 7%

Meta stock rallied as the company reported an 11% rise in revenue on Wednesday, beating Wall Street expectations.

Revenue grew to $32bn in the quarter ending in June, compared to analysts’ average estimate of $31.12bn, marking Meta’s most profitable quarter since 2021. The news sent stocks surging by 7% in after-market trading.

More details soon …

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US begins sharing Russian war-crimes evidence with Hague court

Quiet decision ends dispute within Biden administration over ICC cooperation after Pentagon had been accused of obstruction

The Biden administration has said it has begun sharing evidence with the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague on war crimes committed in Ukraine.

The announcement ends a months-long dispute within the administration over the issue, in which the national security council (NSC) and the state department backed cooperation with the ICC, with the Pentagon resisting on the grounds it would imply endorsement of an international court that could one day seek to prosecute US soldiers.

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Mitch McConnell abruptly stops mid-sentence during press conference

Senate Republican leader appeared to lose train of thought and stared for 20 seconds before being escorted away from podium

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, briefly left his own press conference on Wednesday after stopping his remarks mid-sentence and staring off into space for several seconds.

McConnell approached the podium for his weekly press conference and began speaking about the annual defense bill on the floor, which he said was proceeding with “good bipartisan cooperation”. But he then appeared to lose his train of thought, trailing off with a drawn-out “uh”.

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Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to tax and gun charges amid uncertainty over previous plea agreement – as it happened

Judge presiding over hearing involving US president’s son said she needed more time to evaluate previous deal

Ken Buck, a Republican representative of Colorado asked Mayorkas about the the China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline that has been entering the country and the rising fentanyl overdose deaths currently plaguing the US.

“The fentanyl killing thousands of Americans every year as a direct result of your dereliction when people die of fentanyl poisoning. It is your fault,” said Buck as he went on to ask Mayorkas what his response would be to the families of fentanyl victims in the US.

“We grieve the loss of any life as a result of the toxicity, the devastation… The challenge of fentanyl is not new. It has been escalating for more than five years…. This is a scourge and all of us have to work together to combat…

I stand by my statement…that China does bear responsibility because many of the precursor chemicals and the pill press equipment that is used to manufacture fentanyl does originate from there. This is a complex problem. We are taking it to the criminals…”

“I see other countries with systems that are more advanced than ours that can match the need for labor with the supply for labor… It is proven that lawful labor pathways cause a reduction in the number of irregular arrivals at our border…”

“We have used our parole authority consistent with the law and consistent with past practices of different administration.”

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