- PoliticsThe Telegraph
Swedish prime minister warns Donald Trump he cannot influence ASAP Rocky judicial process
The Swedish prime minister has disputed Donald Trump's claim over the treatment of a detained American rapper following a phone call between the two leaders. Platinum-selling artist A$AP Rocky was arrested in Sweden in July on suspicion of assault following a street brawl. Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday that he had spoken to Prime Minister Stefan Lofven offering to personally vouch for his bail.
- NewsThe National Interest
Alleged American ISIS Sniper Brought Home by the Defense Department to Face Charges
An American citizen who allegedly served as a sniper for ISIS and became a leader for the terrorist group is expected to appear in federal court on Friday after being returned to the United States by the Defense Department, officials said. Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, who was born in Kazakhstan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department announced on Friday. A U.S. official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Defense Department had transported Asainov from Syria to the United States.
- PoliticsBloomberg
Booker Says He Could Confront Biden on Race at Detroit Debate
Booker, a New Jersey senator, said it would be “fair” to bring up the 1994 crime bill, which Biden supported in the Senate and has called the “Biden crime bill.” Booker said the measure put “mass incarceration on steroids” for African Americans. “Yeah, it is fair,” Booker said on CBS News's “Face the Nation,” when asked by host Margaret Brennan whether he would be more aggressive on race at the forums in Detroit on July 30-31.
- WorldAssociated Press
Vatican college space holds bones of dozens, expert says
A genetics expert retained by the family of a girl who went missing in 1983 said Saturday that a cavernous underground space near a Vatican cemetery holds thousands of bones that appear to be from dozens of individuals, both "adult and non-adult." The expert, Giorgio Portera, said the "enormous" size of the collection under the Teutonic College was revealed when Vatican-appointed experts began cataloguing the remains, which were discovered last week . "We didn't expect such an enormous number" of bones and other remains which "had been thrown into a cavity," Portera said.
- BusinessThe Daily Beast
Ex-NRA Ad Firm: Um, Wayne LaPierre is Lying
In a new filing against the National Rifle Association, lawyers for ad agency Ackerman McQueen suggest that longtime NRA executive Wayne LaPierre is lying about a critical moment in the gun rights group's recent leadership shake up. At issue is multi-million-dollar litigation between the NRA and its ex-ad firm. In court filings of its own, the NRA has alleged that Oliver North, the groups's former president, was ousted in part because he withheld information from the NRA about payments he took from Ackerman McQueen, which had served as the gun rights group's primary ad contractor until just months ago.
WorldAFPIraq Kurds arrest two suspects in killing of Turkish vice consul
Iraqi Kurdish authorities announced Saturday they had arrested two suspects involved in the murder of three people, including a Turkish diplomat, in the regional capital Arbil this week. The autonomous region's security council first said its counterterrorism unit had arrested "the main perpetrator" Mazloum Dag, a 27-year-old from Turkey's Diyarbakir region. The council had put out a wanted notice for Dag a day earlier in connection to Wednesday's killing of Turkish Vice Consul Osman Kose and two Iraqi nationals.
- WorldReuters
Japan undecided on response to U.S. plan for Mideast maritime coalition -PM Abe
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday he had not yet decided on how to respond to an expected U.S. request to send its navy to join a military coalition to safeguard strategic waters off Iran and Yemen. "We've started to hear the United States' thinking on this and we want to keep listening carefully," he said on national television as votes were being counted for the upper house election. "At the same time, Japan also has friendly ties with Iran," Abe added.
- NewsUSA TODAY
9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines
Hundreds of people lined the hallways of Renown Regional Medical Center to honor the 9-year-old girl who died after being injured in a bounce house incident earlier this week. Lizzy Hammond died after a bounce house blew into power lines in South Reno near Bartley Ranch on Sunday. Two other children were also injured in the incident.
- WorldTime
A Passenger Was Fined $105,000 and Banned for Life for 'Extremely Disruptive Behavior' on an Airplane
An unruly passenger has been billed $105,000 after her “extremely disruptive behavior” caused a flight to be diverted with a military escort. British budget carrier Jet2 accused passenger Chloe Haines of “a catalogue of aggressive, abusive and dangerous behavior,” including trying to open the aircraft door, during a flight from the U.K. to Turkey. The airline said in a statement Haines was restrained by crew with the help of other passengers as two military fighter jets escorted the aircraft back to London Stansted.
- WorldYahoo News
'Horrific for all': Pentagon intelligence chief says Iran does not want war
A U.S. Marines helicopter takes off from the flight deck of the USS Boxer during its transit through Strait of Hormuz. ASPEN, Colo. — As tensions in the Persian Gulf continued to ramp up on Friday afternoon amid news that Iran had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, concluded that Iran does not want to start a war with the U.S. or its allies. Answering a question posed by CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto in Aspen, Colo., about the latest incident, Ashley declined to give a specific response to the news, but later said that none of the United States' major adversaries or competitors, including Iran, China and Russia, wants to start a war.
- BusinessThe National Interest
Will Taiwan Get the New F-16V Fighters It Desperately Wants?
Sebastien Roblin Security, And how mad will China get? On July 8, the U.S. State Department announced it would approve a $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan including 108 Abrams main battle tanks and 250 Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missiles—a deal which elicited new sanctions from Beijing on the companies involved. But the announcement was more notable for what the approval didn't include—a nearly done-deal for sixty-six F-16V jet fighters built fresh off the F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina.
- CelebrityWLS – Chicago
Compton boy loses arm after neighbor hands him firework on 10th birthday
A man is in custody after handing his young neighbor a firework that blew up, causing the boy to lose his arm on his 10th birthday.
- NewsAssociated Press
Pittsburgh marks its 4th alligator sighting since May
A baby alligator was found far from the tropics in the parking lot of a grocery store outside Pittsburgh on Friday morning, the fourth alligator discovered near the city since May. An employee found the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) creature near a garbage can at the Giant Eagle grocery store in Shaler, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh. "It looks like a little baby alligator," Shaler Township Police Lt. Dave Banko told the Tribune Review newspaper.
- WorldBloomberg
U.S. Rejects Caracas’s Claim It Breached Venezuelan Airspace
The U.S. military rejected Venezuela's claim that a U.S. intelligence aircraft flew over the South American nation's airspace on Friday, saying the American jet was over international waters and had been “aggressively shadowed. The U.S. Southern Command said Sunday on Twitter that the U.S. EP-3 “was performing a multi-nationally recognized & approved” mission when shadowed “at an unsafe distance” by a Venezuelan SU-30 Flanker, “jeopardizing the crew & aircraft. Video of the incident was attached.
WorldAFPAustria probes ex-leader's staff over shredding evidence
Austrian prosecutors are probing a staffer of former chancellor Sebastian Kurz on suspicion of shredding evidence, possibly linked to the scandal that brought down the government in May, media reports and an official said over the weekend. The probe could hurt Kurz and his conservative People's Party (OeVP), which is so far tipped to come out strongest again in September elections despite the scandal that has since become known as "Ibiza-gate". Hidden camera recordings saw Kurz's far-right vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, resign, the coalition collapse and a caretaker government appointed.
- WorldReuters
UPDATE 1-Suspected Japan arsonist a reclusive, quarrelsome gamer, neighbour says
The man suspected of killing 34 people in an arson attack in Japan lived alone, hundreds of kilometres from the torched Kyoto Animation studio, where he played video games non-stop and had "terrified" his neighbour just days earlier. Police late on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for 41-year-old Shinji Aoba, suspected of causing Japan's worst mass killing in two decades on Thursday when he went to the studio in western Japan, poured fuel around the entrance and shouted "Die" as he set the building ablaze, according to public broadcaster NHK. They plan to arrest Aoba, who suffered serious burns and on Saturday was airlifted to a university hospital for treatment, once he recovers, NHK said.
- LifestyleDelish
41 Low-Carb Breakfasts You'll Actually Want To Eat
Who needs toast when you have these? From Delish
- NewsUSA TODAY
Universal Orlando reopens after police respond to report of a gunman in parking garage
Universal Orlando went under lockdown Saturday night after police received a report of a gunman spotted in a parking garage. Police arrived shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and, along with Universal security staff, temporarily shut down both of Universal's parking garages to guests while they assessed the area. It was later deemed safe and park activity returned to normal.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Fox’s Chris Wallace Confronts WH Adviser Stephen Miller: ‘No Question’ Trump’s ‘Stoking Racial Divisions’
Making his first major television interview in months, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller found himself grilled relentlessly by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Sunday over President Trump's repeated racist taunts of Democratic congresswomen of color. Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration's hardline anti-immigration policies, appeared on Fox News Sunday and immediately defended both the president's week-long racist tirade against the so-called Squad and a Trump rally crowd's “Send Her Back!” chant.
- NewsThe National Interest
School Board Votes to Paint Over George Washington Mural In San Francisco
The San Francisco Board of Education unanimously voted last month in favor of painting over a George Washington mural series on a school wall depicting Washington standing over a Native American's corpse and another in the company of slaves on his Mount Vernon estate. “This is reparations,” Education Board Commissioner Mark Sanchez said in a KQED report when asked about the estimated $600,000 price tag for its removal. The 1,600-square-foot mural series titled “Life of Washington” was painted on San Francisco's George Washington High School in 1936 by a Russian-American artist and Stanford University art professor Victor Arnautoff.
- BusinessThe Independent
Explosion in popularity of hemp products leaves Texas unable to bust marijuana users
But since Greg Abbott signed the measure into law in June, county prosecutors around Texas have been dropping some marijuana possession charges and declining to file new ones, saying they do not have the time or the laboratory equipment needed to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal marijuana. Collectively, the prosecutors' jurisdictions cover more than 9 million people — about a third of Texas' population — including in Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The accidental leniency represents one of the unintended consequences states may face as they race to cash in on the popularity of products made with or from hemp.
- NewsAssociated Press
Baby's family mad about hospital bills in cut-from-womb case
A Chicago-area hospital says it regrets sending bills to the family of a baby boy who died about seven weeks after attackers cut him from his mother's womb. Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn sent bills for Yovanny Lopez's care that totaled about $300,000, said the family's lawyer, Frank Avila. Some bills even referred to Yovanny as "Figueroa, boy" — the last name of Clarisa Figueroa, who is accused of orchestrating the attack on the baby's mother so that she could claim him as her own.
- WorldAssociated Press
New audio shows UK could not prevent Iran takeover of tanker
The release Sunday of an audio recording has shed new light on the seizure of a British-flagged tanker at the hands of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as tensions flare in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The audio released by maritime security risk firm Dryad Global shows that a British frigate was too far away from the targeted tanker to keep it from being diverted into an Iranian port despite U.K. efforts to keep it from being boarded. On the recording, a stern-voiced British naval officer insists that the U.K.-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero must be allowed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz even as Iranian paramilitary forces demand — successfully — that the vessel change course.
ScienceAFP'World in my window': Apollo went to Moon so we could see Earth
On their journey to the Moon, the Apollo 11 crew had to rotate their spaceship continuously so that one side didn't "barbecue" in the Sun while the other froze -- meaning they couldn't see their destination until they were almost upon it. "When we rolled out and looked at (the Moon), oh, it was an awesome sphere," the 88-year-old told an audience at the George Washington University Thursday night, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing on July 20.
- WorldReuters
Irish, EU governments sound out Johnson to avoid no-deal Brexit: Sunday Times
Ahead of Boris Johnson's likely election next week as Britain's prime minister, EU countries are secretly wooing him in a bid to thrash out a new Brexit plan that would avoid a no-deal disaster, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. Senior Irish politicians and diplomats have held talks with two of Johnson's cabinet allies in recent days, it said. German and French figures as well as the Dutch and Belgian governments have also established contact with Johnson's team and signaled an intention to do a deal, it added.
