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.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.kxan.com/investigations/federal-forecast-concerns-surface-in-texas-deadly-flooding-debate/

KERR COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — State and local officials are calling out federal forecasters amid deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country over the extended Fourth of July weekend. The criticism comes, as funding cuts and staff shortages plague the National Weather Service and other emergency management agencies nationwide.

Texas Department of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd told reporters Friday original forecasts from the National Weather Service predicted 4 to 8 inches of rain in that area, “but the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”

“Listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service, right?” Kidd said. “You all got it, you’re all in media, you got that forecast. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”

Kidd added TDEM “worked with our own meteorologist to finetune that weather statement” but did not elaborate on any updated interpretation that would have led to more urgent warnings for evacuations.

The area actually received a much more significant amount of rain that night, with NWS observed totals exceeding 10 inches just west of Kerrville, near where dozens were killed or remain missing – including several children at a summer camp.

Localized LCRA rainfall totals in the region have exceeded 18 inches in some places.

The Guadalupe River in Kerrville measured just under a foot on Thursday, leading up to midnight. At about 4 a.m. Friday, the river rose over 30 feet in less than two hours, according USGS data.

> Thread Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLigHzSH7_Q

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/a-day-after-grand-opening-flooding-concerns-grow-at-alligator-alcatraz/3650757/

> Just a day after the grand opening of a detention center in the Everglades, concerns grow over flooding in the area.

> Transportation workers were seen digging holes Wednesday as a sign went up calling this detention facility “Alligator Alcatraz.”

> During and since President Donald Trump's visit on Tuesday — as expected in summer months — those afternoon thunderstorms easily created flooding, and in swampy areas, plenty of mud.

> There were already reports of flooding inside the facility, despite what the head of Florida’s Emergency Management said.

> "It is a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles and hour or a high-end Category 2 for those people who don’t think that we are taking that into consideration," Kevin Guthrie said.

> A spokesperson for Florida’s Emergency Management told NBC6 on Wednesday that vendors went back and tightened any seams at the base of the structures that allowed water intrusion during the heavy storm, which was minimal.

> "There are over 13 different vendors that came together to get this solved in eight days," Guthrie said.

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.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/30/russia-military-challenges-summer-offensive/

Russia has unleashed its summer offensive in Ukraine’s east and is slowly grinding forward with its advantage in manpower, artillery shells and missiles. The coming months are crucial in President Vladimir Putin’s bid to force Kyiv’s capitulation.

Yet Russia’s progress over the past two years against Ukraine has been glacial, especially compared with the recent lightning strikes by Israel against a much larger Iran. The reason, according to experts, is the state of Russia’s military — a long-standing problem.

Independent Russian military analyst Ian Matveev predicts that Russia’s summer offensive won’t lead to a drastic breakthrough but could gain several thousand square kilometers of territory. The military is incapable of conducting complex operations in Ukraine, he said, because of weaknesses in intelligence, shortages, corruption, logistical failures and poor training.

“These [mass assault] tactics are the only thing the Russian military is capable of at the moment. And it’s very inhumane because in fact dead people are being traded for territory. What we have in the Russian army now is a lot of soldiers, but they have no training.”

https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2025/07/06/brit-jailed-for-child-sex-trafficking-after-2023-prostitution-crackdown-on-pattayas-notorious-soi-6/

British man jailed for 21 years in Thailand for trafficking a 16-year-old girl into prostitution on Pattaya’s notorious Soi 6. William Bilton ran the Flirt Bar, advertised the victim online, sparking a major crackdown on sex trafficking amid efforts to clean up “Sin City.”

A Bangkok court has jailed a British man for more than 21 years for trafficking a girl under 16 in Pattaya. William Reece Bilton, 33, from northern England, ran the Flirt Bar on the city’s infamous Soi 6 strip—a hotspot for sex tourism. He was found guilty of human trafficking and child exploitation by the Criminal Court this week. Bilton had been out on bail since police raided the venue in April 2023. But now, he’s behind bars. The court heard he lured the girl into prostitution and advertised her online. Pattaya, dubbed “Sin City,” has long faced international scrutiny over its seedy underworld. This case is one of the most serious yet.

Tucker Carlson continues to perform historic interviews in the pursuit of journalism, much to the dismay of legacy news outlets
Tucker Carlson has now interviewed the president of Iran
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tucker-carlson-says-air-interview-with-president-iran-2025-07-05/
Tucker Carlson says to air interview with president of Iran

WASHINGTON, July 5 (Reuters) - U.S. conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.

Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which "should be in a day or two."

Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, "What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?"

"There are all kinds of questions that I didn't ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, 'was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the U.S. government a week and a half ago?'" he said.

Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.

Trump said Tehran's nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent U.S. strikes that followed Israel's attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program.

Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgqwlvq180o
The online message board 4chan is being investigated by the UK communications regulator over failure to comply with recently introduced online safety rules.

Ofcom says it has received complaints over potential illegal content on the website, which has not responded to its requests for information.

Under the Online Safety Act, online services must assess the risk of UK users encountering illegal content and activity on their platforms, and take steps to protect them from it.

Ofcom is also investigating porn provider First Time Videos over its age verification checks, and seven file sharing services over potential child sexual abuse material.

4chan has been contacted for comment.

Ofcom says it requested 4chan's risk assessment in April but has not had any response.

The regulator will now investigate whether the platform "has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties to protect its users from illegal content".

It would not say what kind of illegal content it is investigating.

Ofcom has the power to fine companies up to 10% of their global revenues, or £18m - whichever is the greater number.

4chan has often been at the heart of online controversies in its 22 years, including misogynistic campaigns and conspiracy theories.

Users are anonymous, which can often lead to extreme content being posted.

It was the subject of an alleged hack earlier this year, which took parts of the website down for over a week.

Seven file sharing services also failed to respond to requests for information from the regulator.

They are Im.ge, Krakenfiles, Nippybox, Nippydrive, Nippyshare, Nippyspace and Yolobit.

Ofcom also says it has received complaints over potential child sexual abuse material being shared on these platforms.

Separately, porn provider First Time Videos, which runs two websites, is being investigated into whether it has adequate age checks in place to stop under-18s accessing its sites.