Wannabe influencer busted for pelting sleeping homeless victims with ‘high-powered’ water gun

A Houston man was slapped with multiple charges after posting videos of himself shooting homeless people with a “high-powered motorized water gun” in a sick social media stunt.

When Teen Chaos Meets a Country Afraid to Say No

Europe Has Replaced Most US Cuts Within NATO, Top Commander Says

European NATO allies have mostly replaced the assets that the US has cut from its rescue plans in case of a war in Europe, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe Sir John Stringer said in an interview.

MAGA defender stuns CNN panel by twisting himself into 'pretzel' for Trump

President Donald Trump is drawing a great deal of criticism from a combination of Democrats and Never Trump conservatives for mixing the federal government with his private business ventures — which, detractors say, is a blatant conflict of interest. And a CNN panel went off the rails on Thursday night when Trump supporter Ben Ferguson went out of his way to defend the president.Ferguson argued, "We have a president that was really wealthy when he came in, and keeps doing business with his family. There's nothing wrong with it."But host Abby Phillip and others on the panel pushed back against Ferguson's argument.Phillip told Ferguson, "You would have been fine with the so-called Biden crime family if Biden had just been transparent — if Hunter Biden had just been transparent? If he had just been transparent and said, 'I'm using my dad's name to make money,' you would have said, 'Totally above board?'"Ferguson, however, doubled down on his defense of Trump, saying that "Burisma was massive corruption" and insisting that Hunter Biden's business activities couldn't be compared to those of President Trump or his son Donald Trump Jr. Ferguson also mentioned stock trades made by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California). But when CNN's Bakari Sellers jump into, he argued that Ferguson was jumping through hoops to defend the Trumps while making a point of demonizing Democrats.Sellers told Ferguson, "You ask, what did he do that was unethical or illegal? And I wanted to answer that plain and simply. I take…. yoga, and I feel like you're doing a little yoga too for that pretzel that you got yourself into…. To utilize your phrase, the president makes $400,000 a year. This quarter, he's made over $1 billion — $1.2 to $1.4 billion — on crypto alone…. What I want to tell you that's unethical is the fact that when you make 3500 trades in one year, and you go up and you invest in a company, and then you sit in the Oval Office and you tell people, 'Wow, this company is great. This company is going to do X, Y, Z' or you ease regulations on this company and you trade and purchase stock in that company. That fundamentally is unethical. You can call it what you want."

Mitch McConnell Remains in Hospital, Spokesperson Says

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office said Thursday that he is still in the hospital but hasn’t disclosed why he was admitted June 14. It comes as police scanner audio indicates paramedics gave CPR to a person in cardiac arrest at his known address.

Trump admin says it's running out of time before November

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to quickly lift her recent ruling against major provisions of a presidential executive order on elections, arguing in an appeal that the court’s action will effectively prevent the government from putting new voting restrictions in place before the November election.This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.Last week, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani halted President Donald Trump’s efforts to create centralized lists of adult citizens and give the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented authority over who can vote by mail. Her 37-page ruling concluded that the president did not have the constitutional authority to regulate state elections, as his March executive order tried to do.The executive order directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to create a nationwide list of verified U.S. citizens over 18, and thus presumably eligible to vote in federal elections. It also called on the U.S. Postal Service to create a system to handle and accept mail-in ballots only from voters on preapproved lists.Talwani’s order prevents the federal government from enforcing those provisions of the order against the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. The list includes most Democratic-led and swing states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.This week, the Trump administration appealed Talwani’s ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals and said it is still proceeding with its efforts to set up the new system for the rest of the states. But it warned that the judge’s order will make it impossible for the U.S. Postal Service to create a bifurcated system for the November election, even if the administration ultimately prevails on appeal. Government attorneys asked Talwani to lift her ban by Monday.The request for a quick decision suggests that the Trump administration may be trying to speed things up so the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible.“Operationally, it would not be possible for us to put a two-tiered system in place where one set of rules apply to the ballot mail of the Plaintiff States, and another applies to the remaining states,” Steven Monteith, the Postal Service’s chief customer and marketing officer and executive vice president, said in a court filing. “Doing so would cause operational confusion and significantly increase the complexity and efficiency of implementing any final rule.”But the Trump administration’s nationwide efforts to use the Postal Service to regulate who gets ballots also hit a separate legal roadblock this week when another federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the executive order violates a years-old agreement requiring the federal government to ensure voters who request mail-in ballots get them in time to ensure they can be counted.U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan concluded that the Trump administration’s plans to send ballots only to voters on preapproved lists breached a 2021 agreement between the Postal Service and the NAACP meant to ensure that the agency prioritized ballot delivery. In contrast to Talwani’s ruling, Sullivan’s decision applies nationwide.“These proposed rules directly undermine commitments that the Postal Service made to ensure mail-in ballots are delivered and counted,” said Anthony Ashton, senior associate general counsel for the NAACP, in a statement.The U.S. Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org. Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

Democrats will have ‘field day’ with Trump inquiries if they win House, legal experts say

Investigations into president and corruption charges will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win majority in midtermsDonald Trump’s presidency is facing investigations and corruption charges from a key House Democrat and ex-prosecutors, involving political and personal abuses of power, which legal experts predict will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win the House majority in the midterms.Legal critics call the scandals dogging the president “target rich” for investigations that Democrats will have a “field day” investigating if they win the House majority. Critics cite, for instance, Trump’s damaging the rule of law by weaponizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to exact revenge on political foes and protect himself from federal investigations, plus Trump moves to profit in radical ways from his presidency with lucrative and new cryptocurrency ventures. Continue reading...

Trump says U.S. keeping current support levels for NATO would be "ridiculous"

President Trump says it would be "ridiculous" for the United States to continue its "one sided" relationship with NATO. His remarks came less than a week before a NATO summit in Turkey.