Unblock whistleblower's complaint on President Donald Trump's call to Ukraine over Biden

Just as the aftershocks of the special counsel's Russia investigation seemed to have settled, the latest tremblor out of the Oval Office is whether the president used the levers of his foreign policy toward Ukraine for political gain. Short of someone violating the law by leaking that whistleblower complaint, or the whistleblower risking retaliation by bravely going to Congress, there's no quick or certain process for the public to learn its contents. There is, however, a steady drip of news media reports, and a few admissions by Trump himself on Sunday.

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  Ukraine's foreign minister is now defending Trump's call with the country's leader ahead of meeting at the UN

  FOX News Videos
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  Trump hopes 'they release' his call with Ukraine's president, in which he says he talked about both Joe and Hunter Biden and 'corruption taking place'

  Business Insider

The Amex Business Platinum perks are so good it makes me want to start my own company

BGR has partnered with The Points Guy for our coverage of credit card products. How are these brand new Hilton Amex offers even profitable for the companies at this point? One of our favorite rewards credit cards for ordinary consumers is The Platinum Card® from American Express, which combines a big up-front welcome offer of 60,000 points (after using the card to spend $5,000 in your first three months) with a ton of luxe perks.

Ex-cop's murder trial for shooting neighbor set to start

Last September, a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in his own apartment. For some, the shooting was a tragic accident with circumstances that can only be described as "very unique." Others place it in pattern of white officers killing black men that, they say, points to systemic problems in American policing. On the eve of trial, one of the only points of agreement about her case in Dallas is that it has the potential to profoundly affect the relationship between police and residents.

DHS contradicts Candace Owens on same day she testifies before Congress about white nationalism

On the same day that the Department of Homeland Security added violent white supremacist extremism to its list of terror threats for the first time since the agency's creation after the 9/11 attacks, a controversial African American conservative commentator told Congress that “white nationalism is not a problem that is harming” communities of color in America. Candace Owens, who has previously dismissed white nationalism and has said Hitler was “OK” until he “had dreams outside of Germany”, downplayed the threat of white supremacy at Friday's hearing during her testimony before the House Oversight Joint Subcommittee Owens told lawmakers that "based on the hierarchy of what's impacting minori...

Israel's Arab party support pushes Gantz ahead of Netanyahu

Israel's Arab-dominated Joint List party moved on Sunday to back the center-left bloc of Benny Gantz, who is challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing alliance, to form a new government. With final results all but in, neither Gantz nor Netanyahu command a majority in parliament, so the Arab List's decision to end its usual policy of withholding support for any candidate in the wake of elections could nudge President Reuven Rivlin to ask Gantz to form a government.

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  Arab lawmakers in Israel endorse Gantz for prime minister

  Associated Press
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  Arab Parties Back Gantz in Bid to Oust Netanyahu

  The Wall Street Journal

Face transplant recipient's donor face failing

A woman who was severely burned in Vermont is hoping for a second face transplant after doctors recently found tissue damage that likely will lead to the loss of her donor face.

Could a Tax on Stock Trades Pay Off the Nation’s Student Debt?

If several of the Democratic candidates for president have their way, student debt will be a thing of the past – at least for current student loan borrowers. Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed ambitious legislation that would cancel all student loan debt. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's plan would pay up to US$50,000 in loans for borrowers making less than $100,000, and a reduced amount for those making between $100,000 and $250,000.

Cory Booker will exit presidential race if $1.7m not raised by end of month

Cory Booker could be the next Democrat to drop out of the race for the presidential nomination. Without a fundraising surge to close out this quarter, we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward,” Demissie wrote in the memo, published online on Saturday morning. The next 10 days will determine whether Cory Booker can stay in this race.

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  Cory Booker sends memo to staff saying his presidential campaign may be ending soon

  FOX News Videos
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  Democrat Cory Booker’s struggling White House bid doomed ‘without immediate fundraising surge’

  The Independent

The Latest: 5 tourists still critical after deadly bus crash

Five people remain in critical condition after a bus crash that killed four Chinese tourists and injured dozens more near a national park in Utah. Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Street said Friday evening that the bus originated in Southern California, and the tourists on board were natives of mainland China. Authorities are investigating what caused the bus to careen into a guard rail Friday morning on highway winding through otherworldly spires of red rock near Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah.

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  4 killed in southern Utah bus crash

  CBS News Videos
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  The Latest: Travel agency sends employees to help tourists

  Associated Press

Dozens detained in Kazakhstan at anti-China protests

ALMATY/NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) - Police detained dozens in Kazakhstan's two largest cities on Saturday as they took part in the latest protest against China's influence in the Central Asian republic. Neighboring China is already one of Kazakhstan's largest investors and trade partners and a plan to relocate a number of Chinese plants and factories to the former Soviet republic has faced public opposition. The latest round of protests on Saturday was organized by supporters of Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive banker living in France who has been the fiercest critic of Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Surprising Facts You Didn't Know About Rhinos

Do you know how much dung one rhino produces a day? From Popular Mechanics

No-deal Brexit: How EU members are preparing

An end to freedom of movement could also spell anguish for some of the 3.5 million EU citizens living in Britain and the around 1.2 million Britons living in other EU countries. Following is a summary of the preparations taken by various EU members: - Britain: Fears of public disorder - Britain says it will scrap tariffs on most imports, while keeping a reduced rate for some agricultural products to protect farmers. The EU, for its part, says it will treat Britain as a "third country", imposing tariffs that are generally low but could run to 10 percent on cars, for example.

Israel Could Not Survive Hamas' Missiles Without The Iron Dome

Key point: Israeli missile defense technology is cutting edge. On July 15th, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced it was deploying more Iron Dome missile defense systems near Tel Aviv and other parts of southern Israel. The Iron Dome is Israel's most effective defense system against short-range projectiles.

Trump attacks Biden after ‘repeatedly urging Ukrainian president’ to investigate 2020 opponent’s son

Donald Trump has attacked Joe Biden on Twitter after it was reported the president repeatedly pressured Ukraine to launch an investigation into the son of his highest-polling opponent in the 2020 race for the White House. With outcry reaching a fever-pitch over Mr Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which an intelligence community whistleblower reportedly said he urged the country's new leader to investigate Hunter Biden “about eight times,” the president attempted to turn the focus away from him on Saturday morning by hitting out at the Democratic Party's clear 2020 frontrunner. “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won't get a very large amount of US money, so they fabricate a story about me and a perfectly fine and routine conversation I had with the new President of the Ukraine,” Mr Trump wrote.

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  President Trump: The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption

  USA TODAY Opinion
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  2020 Democrats ramp up their impeachment calls over the whistleblower complaint

  FOX News Videos

Chasten Buttigieg goes from opening act to fundraising star

Chasten Buttigieg has gone viral on social media and supported his husband on the presidential campaign trail. Chasten is slated to be the sole headline draw for several Pete for America fundraisers over the next month, starting with an event in Chicago this week. In October, Chasten will swing through New York City for another fundraiser, followed by a trip overseas to raise money from Americans living in London on Oct. 22, according to event invitations obtained by POLITICO.

Gorsuch says US Supreme Court not split on partisan lines

The conventional wisdom that the court is split along partisan lines based on the political views of the president that appointed each justice is false, a U.S. Supreme Court justice said. Gorsuch is considered one of the Supreme Court's most conservative members, though he recently agreed with more liberal colleagues in a decision reaffirming a criminal defendant's right to a jury trial. Gorsuch noted he uses the original meaning of the Constitution to guide his judicial decisions, in contrast with judges who believe interpretations of the document should evolve over time.

Julian Castro, other Democrats criticize Ben Carson after reported comments on transgender people

After Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson reportedly made offensive remarks about transgender people earlier this week, Julián Castro, former Obama HUD secretary and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, as well as other candidat, had some choice words. Black trans women have been killed this year because comments like Ben Carson's normalize violence against them,” Castro tweeted Thursday. As HUD Secretary, I protected trans people, I didn't denigrate them.

Woman convicted in texting suicide case denied parole

The Massachusetts woman convicted of encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself via text messages has been denied early release.

Stacks of cash shown at trial of Sudan's toppled leader Bashir

Stacks of cash piled high were shown as evidence on Saturday against ousted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir at his trial on charges of possessing illicit foreign currency and corruption. Millions of euros and Sudanese pounds were found at Bashir's residence in April after he was overthrown and detained by the military following months of demonstrations against his rule. The court heard four defense witnesses on Saturday, including Abubakr Awad, who was minister of state for the presidency until Bashir's fall, before it was adjourned until next Saturday.

Swiss to hold high-altitude wake for lost glacier

Dozens of people will undertake a "funeral march" up a steep Swiss mountainside on Sunday to mark the disappearance of an Alpine glacier amid growing global alarm over climate change. The Pizol "has lost so much substance that from a scientific perspective it is no longer a glacier," Alessandra Degiacomi, of the Swiss Association for Climate Protection, told AFP. Dressed in black, they will make the solemn two-hour "funeral march" up the side of Pizol mountain in northeastern Switzerland to the foot of the steep and rapidly melting ice formation, situated at an altitude of around 2,700 metres (8,850 feet) near the Liechtenstein and Austrian borders.

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  Activists stage funeral for Swiss glacier in Alps

  Reuters Videos
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  Climate activists hold event to mark vanishing Swiss glacier

  Reuters