https://www.vice.com/en/article/escalating-violence-and-mining-encroachment-spark-protests-in-the-philippines/

1 July, 2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ridsdel

>At the time of the kidnapping, he was retired. Prior to that he had been working for the mining company TVI Resource Development Philippines Inc.,[3] a subsidiary of Canada's TVI Pacific, where he was also a consultant.

>Ridsdel was kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines on 21 September 2015, in a raid on Holiday Ocean View Samal Resort, on Samal Island in the southern Philippines.[4] After the gunmen disarmed the resort's security guards, they abducted four people from the resort, the Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, the resort's Norwegian marina manager Kjartan Sekkingstad, and a Filipino woman, Teresita Flor.[5]

>The kidnappers later issued demands for a hefty ransom to be paid for the release of the hostages, reportedly 300 million pesos (around $6.5 million) for each of the three foreigners seized. As the deadline lapsed on 25 April 2016, they apparently beheaded Ridsdel.[6] Ridsdel's head was found in a plastic bag in Jolo.[7] A headless body, possibly Ridsdel's, was later found by villagers by a creek bed near Talipao. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched an international murder investigation.[8]

The company he worked for was involved in torturing and killing indigenous Lumad people (Lumads are not Muslim btw)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVI_Pacific

>In 2015 TVI was mentioned along with several other mining companies as being the likely beneficiary of a series of government-funded murders of the indigenous Lumads who live in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, an area rich in mineral resources to which these companies would like better access.[3]

Although Islamist Abu Sayyaf didn't care about it, these Canadians were also criminals who helped genocide non-Muslim natives while Canadian media reported in them as they were taking an innocent vacation.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-says-america-party-is-formed-us-2025-07-05/
A day after asking his followers on X whether a new U.S. political party should be created, Elon Musk said on Saturday that the "America Party is formed."
"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" he said in a post on X.
"Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom."

The announcement from Musk comes after President Donald Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which the billionaire chief executive officer of Tesla fiercely opposed.
Musk spent hundreds of millions on Trump's re-election and led the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration aimed at slashing government spending, but the two have since fallen out over disagreements about the bill.

Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billions of dollars in subsidies that Musk's companies receive from the federal government.
Musk said previously that he would start a new political party and spend money to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.

Republicans have expressed concern that Musk's on-again, off-again feud with Trump could hurt their chances to protect their majority in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2025-07-03/ice-releases-6-year-old-with-leukemia-from-detention-following-lawsuit-public-outcry

Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday released a Honduran family — including a 6-year-old boy with leukemia and his 9-year-old sister — following a lawsuit and mounting public pressure.

The story captured attention for being a stark contradiction from President Trump's promise to target "violent criminals" in mass deportations.

In this case, a mother and her two children showed up to Los Angeles Immigration Court to make their case for asylum.

Like thousands of immigrants across the country, they saw their case quickly dismissed — with ICE agents waiting to arrest them in the hallway.

They were detained and transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, where they were held for the last month. During that time, the 6-year-old missed a medical appointment in Los Angeles to be treated for leukemia.

That's when the Texas Civil Rights Project and Columbia University Immigrant Rights Clinic stepped in and filed a lawsuit on their behalf in federal court in San Antonio.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/trump-claims-the-power-to-nullify-the-law/

Remember when Congress banned TikTok? A bipartisan majority passed a law last year to ban the massively popular social media platform due to the national security implications of its control by the Chinese government. President Joe Biden signed it into law, and in January the Supreme Court upheld the law. And yet, TikTok is still with us. So what happened?

How does a law… not become a law? According to the Trump administration, the president has the authority to nullify laws he doesn’t like. The fate of the TikTok ban hasn’t made national headlines in months among the deluge of other notable anti-democratic Trump administration actions. But in letters obtained this week by the New York Times, the Trump administration is claiming broad powers to simply wipe from the books laws it does not like. The TikTok ban has become Exhibit A.

The TikTok law operated not as an outright ban but by making it illegal to host the app in app stores and cloud and internet services, with punishing fines for companies that disobeyed. But in seeking to overturn the law by fiat, the Trump administration tells companies like Apple and Google that they are off the hook.

“Article II of the United States Constitution vests in the President the responsibility over national security and the conduct of foreign policy,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in an April letter to tech companies including Apple, Google, and Amazon. The TikTok law, she continued, does not “infringe upon such core Presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” In other words, if the president invokes his authority in the realms of national security and foreign affairs, he can nullify a law.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/parents-are-charged-son-7-struck-dead-car-accident-rcna210918

The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.

Jessica Ivey and Samuele Jenkins were charged two days after their son Legend died from injuries caused by being struck by a Jeep on May 27 in Gastonia, a rural town in North Carolina. The 76-year-old driver will not face any charges.

The Food Lion store is two blocks away from their home. The parents said the children were with their mother when they asked to meet their father at the store, and she allowed them to leave, according to The Gaston Gazette. The brothers had to cross the busy, four-lane road, but attempted to go between crosswalks.

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/02/nx-s1-5454598/the-gops-massive-bill-would-add-trillions-of-dollars-to-the-countrys-debt
The massive tax cut and spending bill passed by the Senate this week is expected to add trillions of dollars over the next decade to an already hefty federal debt.

The precise level of additional red ink depends on the forecast. The Yale Budget Lab says it would add $3 trillion over the next 10 years, while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates it would add $3.4 trillion. Meanwhile, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the total at $4 trillion or more.

But bean counters all agree: The measure, if passed, would push the government's finances even further out of balance. The bill now heads back to the House, which had passed a somewhat different version earlier this year.

"The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation's fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation's massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card."

> Thread Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuuyR7vrL6M

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/01/us-citizenship-denaturalization-trump-memo

> A justice department memo directing the department’s civil division to target the denaturalization of US citizens around the country has opened up an new avenue for Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, experts say.

> In the US, when a person is denaturalized, they return to the status they held before becoming a citizen. If someone was previously a permanent resident, for example, they will be classified as such again, which can open the door to deportation efforts.

> The memo, published on 11 June, instructed the justice department’s civil division to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence”. Immigration matters are civil matters, meaning that immigrants – whether they are naturalized citizens or not – do not have the right to an attorney in such cases.

> Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan thinktank, explained that much of immigration law was based on discretion by government officials. To revoke a person’s citizenship, US officials must demonstrate that they are not of “good moral character” – a subjective and broad term with little defined parameters.

> Now, the recent memo lists a broad range of categories of people who should be stripped of their naturalized citizenship status, providing further guidance as to who is not of good “moral character”. This included “those with a nexus to terrorism” and espionage, war criminals and those who were found to have lied in their naturalization process. Officials still need to prove their case, Chisthi explained.

Private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, well below expectations, ADP says

Companies in the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, payroll processing firm ADP said Wednesday.

The figure is well below economists’ estimates of a GAIN of 95,000 jobs and down from the prior month’s revised reading of 29,000.

"Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month," said Nela Richardson, ADP's chief economist. "Still, the slowdown in hiring has yet to disrupt pay growth."

Professional and business services experienced the most job losses in June with a decline of 56,000, according to ADP. Education and health services lost 52,000 and financial services lost 14,000.

Manufacturing added 15,000 positions, leading job creation in June. Trade, transportation and utilities gained 14,000 jobs, construction added 9,000 and natural resources and mining added 8,000.

Large businesses – those with 500 or more employees – added 30,000 jobs in the month. Businesses with 50 to 499 employees lost 15,000 workers. Establishments with fewer than 50 employees lost 47,000 jobs.

Annual pay for job-stayers decreased to 4.4% from 4.5% while annual pay for job changers fell to 6.8% from 7%.

The ADP data is released before the Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report, which is due on Friday morning and can differ notably. The government data is expected to show an increase of 110,000 positions, below the 139,000 reported in May.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/private-sector-lost-33000-jobs-june-well-below-expectations-adp-says