PoliticsYahoo News 360Infrastructure costs billions. Who should pay for it?
Democrats largely agree that the best way to fund infrastructure is by increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations. It makes sense, they argue, to ask the most prosperous people and profitable companies to chip in for projects that will benefit all Americans. Conservatives warn against overtaxation, which they say will stifle the economic growth that's one of the key goals behind improving infrastructure.
CelebrityThe WeekBill Cosby to 'be out of prison in hours' after conviction is overturned
Bill Cosby is set to leave prison after a court overturned his sexual assault conviction. Cosby, who was sentenced to between three and 10 years in prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, had his sentence overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, and NBC News' Craig Melvin reports that he "will be out of prison in hours." The court concluded that an agreement Cosby had with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged and that testimony from five other accusers tained his trial, according to The Associated Press.
WorldReutersU.S. eyes more stable, predictable ties with Russia, Blinken tells paper
The United States hopes for more stable and predictable relations with Russia but if the latter continues to "be aggressive", then Washington will respond, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday. "But if Russia is going to continue to take reckless or aggressive actions, we'll respond — not for purposes of conflict, not to escalate, but because we will defend our interests and values," he told Italian daily La Repubblica. Blinken - who was in Rome for a meeting on international efforts to combat Islamist militia - referred to the SolarWind cyberattacks and the attempt to poison jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
HealthWashington ExaminerFauci predicts there could be 'two Americas' between vaccinated and unvaccinated zones
Dr. Anthony Fauci is concerned about the gap of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations as the delta variant of COVID-19 spreads, saying there could be "two Americas." The more contagious and aggressive delta variant has reached nearly every state and accounts for 26.1% of COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions, be that states, cities, or counties, you're going to see these individual types of blips," Fauci said.
WorldAssociated PressAt 100, China's Communist Party looks to cement its future
For China's Communist Party, celebrating its 100th birthday on Thursday is not just about glorifying its past. In the build-up to the July 1 anniversary, Xi and the party have exhorted its members and the nation to remember the early days of struggle in the hills of the inland city of Yan'an, where Mao Zedong established himself as party leader in the 1930s. Dug into earthen cliffs, the primitive homes where Mao and his followers lived are now tourist sites for the party faithful and schoolteachers encouraged to spread the word.
- WorldReuters
Factbox-Jordan security trial sheds light on palace intrigue
Bassem Awadallah, once a confidant of Jordan's King Abdallah, is on trial charged with backing the aspirations of former heir to the throne Prince Hamza to replace the monarch. Awadallah and Hamza's friend and relative Sherif Hassan Zaid, a minor royal who is also on trial, were allegedly helping Hamza to exploit public anger at economic mismanagement and corruption to rally support for him as an "alternative" to the king, officials and public prosecutors say. Here is what we know about a case that exposed faultlines in Jordan's royal family.
LifestyleArchitectural Digest15 Best Tiny House Rentals on Airbnb and Beyond (2021)
Make major memories with a tiny house vacation Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
- PoliticsThe Week
New York hands Trump a victory on election unreliability
With its massive screw-up in counting and reporting preliminary results in New York City's Democratic primary for mayor, the city's Board of Elections has managed to vindicate the self-serving and politically corrosive mendacity of Donald Trump. No, reporting hugely inaccurate preliminary results in the Ranked Choice Voting primary held last week doesn't demonstrate that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump — or that, as the former president continues to claim, voter fraud was rampant in the swing states that delivered the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
- WorldAssociated Press
Brazil's Bolsonaro fires health official after graft claims
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has fired a Health Ministry official after a newspaper reported his alleged participation in a graft scheme to secure COVID-19 vaccines, further straining the government's defense of its pandemic response. The order firing Roberto Dias, head of the Health Ministry's logistics department, was signed on Tuesday night by Bolsonaro's chief of staff, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, and published in Wednesday's official gazette. Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported shortly before the decision that Dias allegedly asked a vaccine provider to inflate the prices of its doses by $1 each in order for the mark-up to be siphoned off.
WorldReutersStung by pandemic, G20 foreign ministers urge greater cooperation
G20 foreign ministers called on Tuesday for multilateral cures for global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency at their first face-to-face meeting in two years. The one-day gathering in the heat-soaked southern city of Matera focused on how to improve cooperation and revive the world's economy following the pandemic and how to boost sustainable development in Africa. "The pandemic has highlighted the need for an international response to emergencies that transcend national boundaries," Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told his counterparts from the Group of 20 major economies.
PoliticsWashington ExaminerDeSantis feuds with Trump over Florida rally amid search for survivors in Surfside
Former President Donald Trump is rejecting pleas from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to postpone a campaign-style rally this weekend some 200 miles from the Miami suburb where an international search-and-rescue mission is excavating bodies from the site of a collapsed seaside condominium. DeSantis's office has "made a direct plea” to the former president's team, calling on it to postpone the Saturday event in Sarasota. One Florida Republican bluntly said Trump and his team need to “read the room.”
U.S.Kansas City StarBody believed to be of missing Iraq War vet found in heavy vegetation, Texas cops say
Human remains believed to be of a 36-year-old Iraq War veteran who went missing more than a year ago were discovered Monday morning, Texas officials say. Aaron Balaban went missing Feb. 10, 2020, from League City — southeast of Houston — after he left his parents' home in the South Shore area, according to the League City Police Department. Texas EquuSearch was involved in the search for Balaban but suspended it because the group did not have any positive leads on his whereabouts, KHOU reported in February 2020.
WorldThe WeekThe spectator responsible for the Tour de France crash has reportedly turned herself in
The spectator responsible for a dozens-deep pileup at the Tour de France on Saturday has been arrested after reportedly turning herself into the police, per People and Sports Illustrated. As of Monday, authorities were reportedly unable to locate the woman, who appeared to have fled the country amid reports of litigation by race officials. "We are suing this woman ...
- WorldAssociated Press
Taiwan boy dies after being repeatedly slammed in judo class
A 7-year-old Taiwanese boy has died after being repeatedly slammed by his coach and others at a judo class. The boy, identified only by his surname, Huang, was taken off life support on Tuesday night after being in a coma since the April 21 incident. The coach, identified in reports by his surname, Ho, has been indicted on charges of causing bodily injury and using children to commit a crime.
WorldReutersIn one year, Hong Kong arrests 117 people under new security law
Hong Kong authorities have arrested 117 people under a national security law imposed one year ago, charging more than 60, mostly democratic politicians, activists, journalists and students. On June 30, 2020, Beijing imposed the security law in Hong Kong following months of often-violent pro-democracy protests, effectively ending the unrest. The law punishes acts which China considers as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.
- NewsYahoo News Video
Putin says U.S. aircraft involved in Black Sea incident
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer during an incident last week in the Black Sea that he described as a “provocation to test Moscow's response.
U.S.Lexington Herald-LeaderCopperhead gets swallowed whole during epic snake battle in Alabama yard, video shows
An “incessantly” barking dog led an Alabama couple to an epic snake battle in their yard, and it ended with the more dangerous of the two serpents — a copperhead — being swallowed whole. It happened in Camden, Alabama, and video of the epic fight was shared on Facebook by the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division. “This is what happens when you bring a copperhead to a kingsnake fight,” the state agency wrote.
U.S.Kansas City StarVideos show massive flooding in Zion National Park as roaring waters cause destruction
A family visiting Utah's Zion National Park from Washington had just finished the famous hike down The Narrows on Tuesday when it started to rain. The Thomas family told KUTV the rain started pounding, coming down quicker and harder than they've seen before. It happened extremely fast,” Lola Thomas told KUTV.
U.S.Associated PressWitness: Dad didn't seem interested in missing son search
A man charged in the death of his 13-year-old son in Colorado nearly a decade ago seemed uninterested in the search for the boy after he disappeared, a witness testified Monday. Mark Redwine, 59, is on trial on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in the death of Dylan Redwine, who was reported missing on Nov. 19, 2012 while on a court-ordered Thanksgiving visit to his home outside the small city of Durango. The boy's body was found in 2013 a few miles from his father's home.
WorldBBCNew UK laws to sweep away EU state aid rules
New legislation set to replace EU rules will grant the government and councils greater freedom to support businesses, the business secretary has said. The Subsidy Control Bill will replace EU-wide state aid rules, which require member states to seek approval for government assistance to firms. Ministers said the rules will allow the government to help companies with grants or loans faster.
BusinessDefense NewsLockheed’s F-35 topples competition in Swiss fighter contest
Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has emerged victorious in Switzerland's $6.5 billion fighter competition, beating out entrants from Eurofighter, Dassault and Boeing. Over the course of the program, Switzerland plans to spend up to 6 billion Swiss francs (U.S. $6.5 billion) to buy 36 F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing models to replace its aging Hornet fleet, the government announced Wednesday. Switzerland will also purchase five Patriot missile defense systems from Raytheon Technologies, which defeated the SAMP/T system from France's Eurosam.
U.S.Charlotte ObserverGirl killed, 2 boys wounded in drive-by shootings Monday in Statesville neighborhood
One child was killed and two others wounded in a pair of drive-by shootings late Monday in Statesville, according to the Statesville Police Department. The shooting happened just before 7 p.m. Monday outside a home in the 1300 block of Wilson Lee Boulevard on the south side of Statesville, police said in a release. Statesville is about 40 miles north of Charlotte.
WorldAssociated PressVirus infections surging in Africa's vulnerable rural areas
A new surge of the virus is finally penetrating Africa's rural areas, where most of the continent's people live, spreading to areas that once had been viewed as safe havens from infections that hit cities particularly hard. With facilities in the countryside ill-prepared to fight the coronavirus, residents like Bvukura worry that the next graves being dug could be for their neighbors — or even themselves. Her village of Zvimba, 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Harare, has yet to record a major spike in infections, but it sits in a province that is the current epicenter of the virus.
WorldBBCCovid in Namibia: Mortuaries at capacity
Namibia's President Hage Geingob has said his country is facing a "dark and sombre moment" as coronavirus deaths and cases rapidly increase. The southern African nation is currently experiencing the worst daily death rate on the continent. The health system is stretched and the country's mortuaries "have reached maximum capacity", Health Minister Kalumbi Shangula said.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden says Iran will ‘never’ get a nuclear weapon on his watch
Joe Biden promised Israel he wouldn't allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons “on his watch” while warning that the US Commander in Chief doesn't need Congressional approval to drop more bombs in the Middle East. Mr Biden rattled the sabre during his first meeting as president with Israeli officials after he was blasted by Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Democrat efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal. The president ordered an airstrike on Iran-backed militia groups on the Iraq and Syria border region on Monday in his second military action to bypass Congress's Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AMUF).
“Obamacare is getting stronger every time the Republicans try to kill it.”
“It is far from certain the Supreme Court will safeguard the Affordable Care Act the next time the law reaches the court’s chambers.”
“Although ACA cost Obama an enormous amount, it’s become clear that he will have the last laugh.”
“Even the feistiest Republicans have given up talking seriously about repeal.”
“Current and future cases will largely concern the administration and enforcement of the ACA, not its underlying architecture.”