The NBC News poll asked American adults which historical event they thought was the country's biggest accomplishment in its 250 years.
"President Trump has nominated a lawyer from a firm that worked on his taxes to become the top attorney at the Internal Revenue Service, an arrangement that could add to the scrutiny that the nomination was already likely to face after the administration granted the president protection from tax audits last month," the New York Times reports.
President Donald Trump canceled his plan to sign a bipartisan affordable housing bill on Wednesday in an effort to pressure his fellow Republicans to pass a long-stalled package of U.S. national voting restrictions ... read more
U.S. inflation increased further in May, breaking above 4.0% for the first time in three years as the Middle East conflict boosted energy prices, and keeping an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve this year on the table.
The Army, Navy, and Air Force are once again requiring basic trainees to get vaccinated against influenza after the virus quickly swept through an Air Force base in Texas ... read more
Meanwhile, memory-chip maker Micron announced quarterly results yesterday and talked about a 85% gross margin ...
Micron Profit Surges 15-Fold as Margin Nears 85%
www.trendforce.com
Crowds Walk Out of Trump's State Fair Speech, Video Appears to Show
www.newsweek.com
... A viral video appearing to show attendees leaving President Donald Trump's speech midway through his remarks is spreading widely online, prompting debate over crowd engagement at the event.
A clip shared on social media platform X, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, appears to show people walking toward exits during Trump's June 24 speech on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Newsweek analysis of official C-SPAN footage from the event found the widely shared moment corresponds to 9:08 p.m. local time"roughly halfway through the speech, not near its conclusion.
A separate post from Jared Poland, who was reporting live from the event on the ground, said: "The crowd has really thinned out since Trump began speaking around 8:50pm." ...
Internal White House documents undercut Trump's Reflecting Pool vandalism claims
www.msn.com
... Internal White House documents about the issues at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool seem to undercut President Donald Trump's claims that the pool had been vandalized, according to a new report.
Trump blamed alleged "vandals" for damaging the pool after crews recently completed a more than $16 million renovation. Video of the bottom layer of paint peeling off in the pool and of green algae taking over nearly the entire structure has circulated online for several days, and some political experts have said the pool itself has become a "symbol" of the Trump administration's incompetence.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration has been aware of the issues the pool faces for a while. Instead of admitting to the issues, the government has sought to blame alleged vandals instead, according to the report.
"Government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool's expansion joints, those were not directly related to the 'American flag blue' coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green," the NYT reported.
"Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine," the outlet added. ...
Related ...
Tillis: Pirro can't be taken 'seriously' for prosecuting alleged reflecting pool vandalism thehill.com
... Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is blasting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for threatening to prosecute people accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool to the fullest extent of the law after President Trump granted blanket pardons last year to people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.[emphasis mine]
"I don't know what's worse to you, vandalizing a pool or assaulting a police officer?" he said. "Now we got somebody, let's say they took a pen knife to a damn pool liner, you're going to prosecute them for 10 years?"
"And you've let people that admitted to assaulting a police officer go and think I can take that person seriously? Nah uh," Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said. ...
Related ...
Trump's Voter Citizenship Mandate Struck Down as Unconstitutional'
www.newsweek.com
... President Donald Trump's plan to implement citizenship requirements for registering to vote was ruled unconstitutional on Wednesday, as the president once again pressured lawmakers to pass a bill on voter ID.
U.S. District Judge Denise Casper, an Obama appointee, said that the U.S. Constitution does not give Trump or any president specific powers over how elections are administered, despite arguments from the current administration over alleged election fraud.
Casper struck down key aspects of one of Trump's executive orders from the early days of his second term, including a requirement to prove citizenship when registering to vote, after arguments from multiple state attorneys general, including California, Arizona, and Massachusetts, that Trump did not have the power to make changes to elections. ...
Third Australian H5 bird flu case confirmed in SA, another suspected WA case
www.abc.net.au
... A third confirmed case of H5 bird flu has been found in a migratory bird on Australia's southern coast, with a giant petrel testing positive in SA.
Authorities say there's no indication it spread from the two birds already confirmed to have been stricken with the virus in WA.
Meanwhile, another bird tested positive for the virus near the WA tourist town of Dunsborough, with the result being assessed by the CSIRO. ...
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