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Russia's consumer sentiment hit a high in June as its wartime economy boosted spending. The sentiment index has risen since April 2022, despite the Ukraine invasion. Russia's economy grew 4% in the second quarter of the year. Economists expect this to slow. Russian consumers are spending large and feeling big about their finances. In June, Russia's consumer sentiment hit a high not seen since the 2000s, according to Levada Center, Russia's last major independent pollster. Russian consumers are on a spending spree Russia's GDP grew 4% in the second quarter of this year from a year ago. It's a slowdown...

ennsylvania is the most important battleground in this year’s election. A former manufacturing powerhouse that has played a pivotal part in the development of American democracy since the colonial era, the Keystone State is today a laboratory for the biggest trends redefining politics: above all, working- and lower-middle-class voters’ shift from the Democratic Party of their forebears to the GOP. Not to the generic Republican Party—to Donald Trump’s party. Summarized briefly, the worldview of this crucial voting bloc goes something like this: The Biden-Harris economy is battering my finances, no matter what the government statistics say; illegal immigration and crime...

~As you know, I loathe writing about the so-called presidential "election" "campaign" - because I regard its leaden rituals as one of the biggest structural defects of American self-government. At least other countries manage to produce their dismal wanker "leaders" without two years and a bazillion dollars of exploratory committees and caucuses and the faux-folksiness of Iowa state fairs and New Hampshire pancake breakfasts and all the rest. So in theory this last month should have been right up my alley - as huge holes were blasted into the stately unhurried calendar on both sides: In one party, the presidential...

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will be auctioning off firearms and sporting goods confiscated by the DNR. Two Auctions will be held, on August 26 and October 7th, 2024.The auctions are open to the public. The goods will be sold “as is”. Background checks are required for those who bid on and win a firearm or firearms. It is not clear if the background check will include filling out a form 4473.The auctions will be conducted by Hiller Auction Inc. at the Auction barn in Zimmerman, Minnesota. The state of Minnesota will pay the auction fees. A sales...

The president, the Democratic presidential candidate, and the vice presidential nominee all either cannot or will not speak casually and publicly to elected representatives, reporters, or the people. BidenPresident Biden was forced, unceremoniously and unwillingly, to abdicate from his impending reelection nomination. Since then, we have neither seen nor heard much from our sitting President. He has vanished, poof, gone. This is quite unusual if not alarming. Unlike prior to the June 27 debate, the left now makes no effort to hide Biden’s debility. Indeed, it accepts the reality that an infirm Biden might not be able to finish out...

(CNN) — Consuming a drink with erythritol — an artificial sweetener used to add bulk to stevia and monk fruit and to sweeten low-carb keto products — more than doubled the risk of blood clotting in 10 healthy people, according to a new pilot study. Clots can break off blood vessels and travel to the heart, triggering a heart attack, or to the brain, triggering a stroke. Previous research has linked erythritol to a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and death. “What is remarkable is that in every single subject, every measure of platelet responsiveness (clotting) went up following...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least 33 people have been shot, one fatally, in shootings across Chicago so far this weekend, police said. Last weekend, at least 48 people were shot, five fatally, across Chicago, police said.

Girl is upset because her boss won’t accommodate her “time blindness”

LAS VEGAS — For weeks, Republicans have pummeled Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, blaming her for President Joe Biden’s policies at the border. Now, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is seeking to neutralize that line of attack, one of her biggest weaknesses with voters, running a playbook that Democrats say has worked for them in recent elections and staking out her clearest position yet as a tough-on-crime prosecutor focused on securing the border. This week, she has hit back by promising to heighten border security if elected and slamming her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, for helping kill...

Susan Wild, the Democrat Pennsylvania congresswoman in one of the country’s tightest House races, has privately and repeatedly trashed working-class conservative voters in her district as bigots who "drank the Trump Kool-Aid." But in public, the Pennsylvania Democrat has drastically moderated her positions on hot-button issues as she seeks reelection in her battleground district. Earlier this year, Wild was caught on a private conference call saying she was "dismayed" that her eastern Pennsylvania district was redrawn in 2022 to include Carbon County, which she lamented had transformed from a "working class blue district" to a "red county." And on her...

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the top of his first speech as her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz turned to Vice President Kamala Harris and declared, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.” The next day, Harris took the theme a step further, branding the Democratic ticket “joyful warriors.” Contrast that with former President Donald Trump, who opened a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida a few days later by saying, “We have a lot of bad things coming up,” and predicting the U.S. could fall into an economic depression unseen since the dark days of 1929 or...

National and Arizona Republicans are formally requesting the Supreme Court allow a state law go into effect that would reject state voter registrations in which the applicant does not provide proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in state elections. The motion also asks the high court to permit Arizona to require such proof for individuals submitting mail-in ballots and voting in presidential contests. Filed on Thursday by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Arizona’s GOP legislative leadership, the emergency application asks SCOTUS to issue a stay on a Aug. 2 decision by a three-judge panel on the 9th...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is two days away from learning whether she has won the Democratic primary for Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, essentially ensuring her path to reelection. Her challenger, a familiar foe in former Minneapolis Councilman Don Samuels, believes he can unseat the sitting Democrat, arguing while campaigning on Sunday that she has been "divisive." "The voters have had three terms under Congresswoman Omar’s leadership and service," Samuels said to FOX 9. "They are dissatisfied." "She goes hard after one point of view, condemns the other point of view, alienates half of her district, and becomes divisive," he added....

The Biden Administration on Monday unveiled a new, multi-agency regulatory initiative to target corporate practices that officials claim are designed to waste consumers’ time and needlessly burden them with red tape, in order to maximize profits. “I think we can all relate to this,” White House domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden told reporters Friday. “For example, you want to cancel your gym membership or subscription service or newspaper. It took one or two clicks to sign up. But now ... you have to go in person, or wait on hold for 20 minutes ... just to opt out,” she said....

Eleven thousand people have been evacuated from Krasnaya Yaruga district in Russia's Belgorod region, state news agency TASS reported on Monday. The regional governor said earlier that evacuations had begun due to "enemy activity on the border". Belgorod is next to the Kursk region where Ukrainian forces broke across into Russia in a major incursion that started last Tuesday.

MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia on Monday evacuated civilians from parts of a second region next to Ukraine after Kyiv increased military activity near the border just days after its biggest incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the start of the 2022 war. Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border last Tuesday and swept across some Western parts of Russia's Kursk region, a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the U.S. election. Apparently caught by surprise, Russia by Sunday had stabilised the front in the Kursk region, though Ukraine had carved...

Brittney Griner was among the WNBA players who spoke out about the national anthem in 2020 amid a summer of racial unrest following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Griner said in 2020 that the WNBA shouldn't play the national anthem, adding the league should "take that much of stand." She also walked off the court before the anthem was played before a game that season. But since then, Griner has gone through tumult. She was imprisoned for nearly 10 months in Russia after she was arrested on drug charges in February 2022. The U.S. and Russia would...

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In 2019, the watchdog site GovTrack rated Kamala Harris “the most liberal” member of the Senate. She was the senator least likely to sign onto bipartisan legislation. Look for that write-up now, however, and you find a “page not found.” GovTrack deleted it. It’s just one example of how Kamala Harris, once a hero of progressives, has been, along with a helpful media, hiding all her far-left positions from voters. A centrist Democrat has a better chance of winning the election, so a centrist she shall be. But it doesn’t take much searching to find the real politician, not the...