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President Biden made a previously unscheduled appearance Friday afternoon as part of an apparent effort by the administration to demonstrate that he remains healthy enough to lead the nation during his second day of treatment for COVID-19. Biden, 79, gave a thumbs-up as reporters shouted questions about how he was feeling — moments after emitting a phlegmy cough as White House economist Cecilia Rouse spoke. Reporters were allowed into the afternoon event in the White House-adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building on short notice to see Biden speak about gas prices via video feed from the second-floor White House residence

More than 880 Detroiters who applied for the city’s municipal ID program may have had their personal information exposed to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Detroit ID program was launched in 2016 to provide photo identification for city residents regardless of citizenship status. Immigration advocates say the program’s vendor sells data to credit agencies, which shares the information with ICE. The city used a company called MoCaFi to run the Detroit ID program. Christine Sauvé, a chair of Detroit’s immigration task force, says MoCaFi has a working relationship with the government. “They share data with clearinghouses that are...

Russia claimed Friday to have already destroyed four of the long-range rocket systems sent to Ukraine by the US — but Kyiv says Moscow is lying. The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that four US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) had been destroyed in the fighting since July 5, all in the Ukrainian province of Donetsk, part of the Donbas region that has seen the heaviest fighting of the war. Russian Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov told reporters the four rocket launchers and one support vehicle had been taken out by “high precision weapons,” according to Russian state-run news outlet TASS.

The entire staff of a small North Carolina police department has suddenly resigned, citing a 'hostile' work environment created by the town’s newly elected manager. The mass exodus transpired Wednesday, and saw five cops, including the force's chief of 20 years, hand in resignation letters to the town manager and city council. The maneuver left the town of Kenly, home to about 2,000 residents, with just three part-time officers to man the waning force. Even before the resignations, the department had been short-staffed, down from a norm of eight officers to five, the cops said - one of several complaints...

Environmental protesters have glued themselves to the glass protecting Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera which is on display at an art gallery in Florence. The activists, from the climate activist group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation), said the protest was the first in “a new season of actions” targeting museums. It appeared inspired by Just Stop Oil activists in the UK who recently conducted a similar campaign of protests in art galleries. Two protesters stuck their palms to the exhibit at the Uffizi gallery beforehand, with the help of a third, unfurling a banner reading “Ultima Generazione No Gas No Carbone (Last Generation,...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new gun bill on Friday that is explicitly modeled after Texas' unprecedented abortion law. The state is now the first to allow citizens to sue people who make or sell banned weapons, state officials said. The bill, SB 1327, allows Californians to sue those making, selling, transporting or distributing illegal assault weapons or ghost guns for at least $10,000 in damages. Gun dealers who illegally sell firearms to those under the age of 21 could also be liable for the same damages. The law is modeled after the Texas "heartbeat act," SB 8, which...

Western governments have allocated well over $100 billion to prop up Ukraine in its war against Russia, with countless billions more flooding into the country at an increasing pace. Yet as each day passes, it’s becoming more and more clear that all of the money awarded and assigned to Ukraine continues to dissolve into a black hole of secrecy, corruption, deceit, and now, default. On Wednesday, Ukraine finance ministry asked foreign creditors to accept a delay in its debt repayments, requesting a two year freeze on billions of dollars in Eurobonds. Per the Financial Times, “a rescheduling would amount to...

(snip) (The war is) now a grueling artillery slugfest. (snip) An American fighting for Ukraine who served in the U.S. Army with combat tours in the Middle East described the constant Russian bombardment of the city of Severodonetsk in Ukraine’s Donbas region as “the closest thing I’ve ever seen to hell.” (snip) “We lost three guys,” after fighting near Severodonetsk, the soldier said. “My commander got killed out there. A buddy of mine got killed out there. When s— like that happens, it’s hard to imagine the way forward.” (snip) “The number of people that are upset and have low...

Verizon will drop One America News from its channel lineup, leaving the right-wing network without any major television carriers. After failing to reach a contractual agreement, Verizon announced it would no longer contain the rights to OAN after July. “Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business-as-usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers. These negotiations were focused on economics, as they always are, but OAN failed to agree to fair terms,” Verizon said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Our company has long advocated for providing customers with the ability to...

Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called 'deep state' beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024 and as many as 50,000 government workers could find themselves on the chopping block.

While Donald Trump may no longer be the president, it was clear on Thursday night that Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, was speaking to that same audience of one. "Doors have opened," Cheney said. "New subpoenas have been issued and the dam has begun to break." The message to Trump was simple: We're coming for you.

Canadians now have a much smaller appetite for COVID-19 public health measures compared to just months ago, despite warnings of a resurgence of cases fuelled by the Omicron BA.5 variant, says a recent Angus Reid poll. The survey, published on July 20, shows just a quarter of Canadians would now support the reimplementation of a COVID-19 vaccine passport in their province, compared to when support for this measure reached its peak of 70 percent in September 2021. Support for provincial mask mandates dropped from 86 percent in November 2021 to just 51 percent in July 2022, even though nearly three-quarters...

TO: California Governor Gavin Newsom in Los Angeles SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a law that would allow private citizens to sue people who sell, manufacture or distribute assault weapons and guns made at home to avoid tracing. The law is a swipe at a Texas law that allows individuals to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an illegal abortion in the state. Newsom, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible presidential contender, signed the California legislation on the same day he released an ad in Texas criticizing the state's reproductive...

Two children have tested positive for monkeypox in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed Friday. One is a toddler from California, while the other is not a resident in America. Neither had contact with each other. Health officials said both children were 'doing well', and had likely caught the virus from 'household contacts'. 'Both of these are traced back to individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community, the gay men's community.'

July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hinted that the Pentagon expressed concern her plane "would get shot down" by the Chinese if she makes a rumored visit to Taiwan this summer. The California Democrat is planning a trip to the self-governing island next month, a report in the Financial Times earlier this week claimed, drawing an angry response from Beijing. Pelosi refused to confirm the trip during a weekly press conference Thursday, saying "I don't ever discuss my travel plans." "You never even hear me say if I'm going to London, because it is a...

She’s just a kid trying to help make peoples’ lives a little easier. A little less painful. And now she’s under attack for it – and her family is facing death threats. You’ve probably heard of Megan. Her non-profit is called Blue Line Bears. She, with the help of her family, takes the uniforms of fallen police officers and turns them into teddy bears for the surviving family members.

It has been three years since the small village of Purapul in northern Kenya saw any significant rainfall and residents have been forced to turn to eating bitter wild berries in order to survive, though some say it is just a matter of time until they succumb to starvation. Their plight is part of a severe drought affecting people across the Horn of Africa, where an estimated 18 million people are on the verge of famine.

(CNN) - It’s so hot across the globe, roads and roofs are melting. The deadly heat waves of the last week have sparked strange infrastructural events around the world as millions endure searing temperatures that are still on the rise. The heat-related events also speak to aging infrastructures worldwide, most of which – roads, bridges, railroads, buildings – are not prepared for the sweltering conditions as of late. So how hot has it been, exactly? Well… It’s so hot, the runway at a London airport melted The United Kingdom saw its hottest day on record Tuesday, when temperatures breached 40...

The U.S. Coast Guard averted what may have been a disaster when it intercepted a ramshackle sailboat packed with more than 150 Haitian migrants including several children off the coast of Florida. Extraordinary images show at least 150 men, women and young children crowded on the boat with no floor place to move on the wooden vessel, which had run aground near Boca Chita Key, south of Miami. The U.S. Coast Guard, Miami-Dade police and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene after they intercepted the sailboat on Thursday morning. The US agencies deployed four boats to surround the...

Ivana Trump’s funeral proudly displayed a copy of her 1992 Vanity Fair cover at the memorial for the socialite - but put up a version that removed Hillary Clinton’s name. Mourners gathered outside of the St. Vincent Ferrer Church, in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, close to the townhouse where Ivana, 73, was found dead last week. The Trump family gathered in New York City to bid farewell to Ivana, Donald's first wife and the mother of his three oldest children - Eric, Ivanka and Don Jr. Photos published by the New York Post and People show that the Trump family...