July 17, 2026

pgnewser

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.westernjournal.com

As president, Joe Biden has tried every trick he can to limit or eliminate Second Amendment rights, but a coalition of state attorneys general is fighting back.

For well over a year, the Biden administration has been looking to criminalize millions of gun owners who sell their privately owned firearms to another private citizen, thereby redefining common, everyday gun owners as “gun dealers.”

Now, Biden’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is attempting to implement Biden’s sneaky, backdoor attack on law-abiding gun owners.

According to an April 12 report from the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act made a subtle change in the definition of who can be considered a “gun dealer” by eliminating the language that once defined a “gun dealer” as someone who engages in repetitive sales of guns, ammunition or accessories with the “principal objective” of making a “livelihood or profit.”

The bill, which Biden signed into law on June 25, 2022, eliminates the “livelihood” portion of that definition, so that only the “profit” remains.

Go to Article
Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, who worked to expand early voting in the Bluegrass State and has spoken out against election denialism in his own party, has been chosen to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this year.

In its announcement Monday, the JFK Library Foundation said Adams was recognized “for expanding voting rights and standing up for free and fair elections despite party opposition and death threats from election deniers.”

Go to Article
Excerpt from time.com

(JERUSALEM) — Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.

It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signaling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza’s population, are sheltering.

An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.bbc.co.uk

This is the moment Gazans celebrated after Hamas says it accepted the terms of a ceasefire plan put forward by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Video shows people jumping up and down and chanting joyously outside Al Aqsa hospital in Central Gaza.

A Hamas official says the “ball [is] now in Israel’s court” after the Palestinian group said it told mediators it would accept the ceasefire proposal.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.washingtonpost.com

Hamas informed Arab mediators that it would approve a Qatari-Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement Monday. There has been no response yet from Israel, which earlier in the day ordered about 100,000 civilians in parts of Rafah to evacuate “immediately” to a humanitarian zone. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Monday, President Biden reiterated his opposition to a ground invasion of Rafah and provided an update on negotiations in Doha, according to a White House readout of the conversation.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.euronews.com

France’s president hosted China’s leader at a remote mountain pass in the Pyrenees on Tuesday for private meetings after Xi visited Paris, in a trip dominated by trade disputes and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a point of inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Tourmalet Pass near the Spanish border, where Macron spent time as a child visiting his grandmother.

The invitation was intended as a reciprocal gesture, after Xi took Macron to the residence of the governor of Guangdong province, where the Chinese president’s father once lived, last year.

 

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.eurasiareview.com

Shockwaves from Israel’s military operation in Gaza have reverberated into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where security forces and emboldened Jewish settlers have reportedly ramped up attacks on Palestinian communities.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack sparked the conflict in Gaza, Israeli settlers have carried out 603 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, expelling 1,222 people from 19 herding communities, according to UN figures.

Armed settlers have also killed at least nine Palestinians, while Israeli security forces have killed 396 others in the past few months.

Likewise, the Israeli army has intensified raids. On May 4, Israeli forces raided Tulkarem and killed five Palestinians, including four Hamas members. On April 20, Israeli forces carried out a raid in the same governorate, home to more than 6,400 refugees, killing 14 Palestinians.

Abeer, who runs a small business in Jenin, has observed a “surge in settler attacks, the proliferation of checkpoints, daily raids on Palestinian homes, infrastructure destruction, killing of Palestinian youths, and increased Israeli military airstrikes.”

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.foxnews.com

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health released an infographic on April 24 through social media site Telegram indicating that it lacked identifying data for more than 10,000 of the 34,183 so-called martyrs who had been killed in the 200 days following Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Despite growing concerns over the Ministry of Health’s figures, the Biden administration continues to cite the ministry’s data with no reference to its origin. In October, President Biden claimed that he had “no confidence” in Ministry of Health figures. In his March, State of the Union address, Biden shared the ministry’s data with a global audience without referencing its origin, noting that “more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas.”

David Adesnik, senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that the incompleteness of data entries for 10,152 victims in an earlier April 21 data set should be “a flashing red light” for onlookers who have previously trusted ministry calculations of the death toll in Gaza.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.voanews.com

Poland is verifying if a Polish judge who had access to confidential information and asked for political asylum in Belarus had been spying, authorities said Monday.Earlier on Monday, Tomasz Szmydt, a judge from a Warsaw administrative court, asked for asylum in Belarus, saying he acted in protest to Poland’s policy toward Russia and Belarus, according to a video aired by Russian TV.

 

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.blacklistednews.com

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the government’s decision to terminate Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, citing the Qatari-owned network as a provocateur of “incitement.” The closure was unanimously agreed upon by the cabinet. Reacting strongly, Al Jazeera labeled the Israeli government’s action as “criminal.”

The restrictions also extend to foreign journalists, notably barring them from entering Gaza, leaving Al Jazeera’s personnel among the few reporters present on the ground. This decision has been informed by longstanding accusations from Israeli authorities of the network’s alleged anti-Israel bias. The criticism has escalated following the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli government has escalated its measures against Al Jazeera by raiding its offices and halting its broadcast amidst the ongoing conflict in Gaza today. Describing the network as a vehicle for Hamas propaganda, Israel’s actions culminated on Sunday when police stormed Al Jazeera’s premises at the Ambassador hotel in Jerusalem. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi publicized the raid with a video on X/Twitter, showcasing officers and inspectors seizing equipment from a hotel room.

Go to Article
Excerpt from thefederalist.com

It’s always nice when your political opponents make your arguments for you. And in the recent dustup over the $60 billion Ukraine subsidy bill — which in late April passed the House and Senate — that’s precisely what foreign policy hawks have done.

As many beltway wonks have observed, increasing debate in the United States over funding the two-year-old war in Ukraine — not to mention our myriad other military commitments around the globe — has led many U.S. allies to reconsider their own defense spending.

In other words, just the fact that there is no longer a consensus about America’s “policeman of the world” post-Cold War security strategy among the American people and their representatives is persuading our allies to meet the various military commitments we have been demanding of them since Ronald Reagan was president. That should be designated a strategic win, but, as interpreted by our blinkered foreign policy establishment — who have unswervingly endorsed the growing number of U.S. military disasters this century — it is somehow a loss.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.infowars.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced tactical nuclear weapons drills in response to “belligerent statements” made by Western leaders threatening to put troops on the ground in Ukraine.

“During the exercises, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” Russia’s defense ministry said Monday.

 

Go to Article
Excerpt from amp.cnn.com

The US State Department on Monday plans to release an ambitious new cybersecurity strategy that seeks to curb Russia and China’s digital influence in the developing world and blunt those countries’ alleged efforts to interfere in elections.

With roughly half of the world’s population holding elections in 2024, their vulnerability to “cyber-enabled interference” is “particularly acute” and requires the US to continuously expose hackers and propagandists trying to undermine confidence in democracies, says the strategy, which CNN has reviewed.

“We have communicated and will continue to communicate to Russia and to China that we view interference in our democratic processes in the United States as absolutely unacceptable,” Nate Fick, the State Department’s top cyber diplomat, said in an interview. “Secretary [Antony] Blinken has said it, and I have said it.”

Go to Article
Excerpt from www3.nhk.or.jp

Chinese President Xi Jinping has begun three-way talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Xi is on his first tour of Europe in five years. On Monday, he was welcomed by President Macron at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris before the discussions started around 11 a.m.

As the meeting started, Macron said the current global situation calls for dialogue between Europe and China more than ever.

Xi said China and the EU should sustain a solid partnership as the world’s two important powers. He said they should develop stable and healthy relations and constantly contribute to global peace and prosperity.

Go to Article
Excerpt from ekurd.net

Displaced people including ISIS families at al-Hol camp, Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), 2019. Photo: AFP

United States announced Tuesday it had brought back two dozen Western citizens, half of them Americans, from a camp for Islamic State prisoners in Syria, its largest-ever repatriation as thousands languish.

In a complex operation involving US agencies, Kuwait and pro-US Kurdish fighters, the United States repatriated 11 US citizens, including five minors, as well as a nine-year-old non-US sibling of an American, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

The United States in the same operation facilitated the repatriation of six Canadian citizens, four Dutch citizens, and one Finnish citizen, among them eight children, he said.

“This is the largest single repatriation of US citizens from northeast Syria to date,” Blinken said in a statement.

Go to Article
Excerpt from townhall.com

The pro-Hamas encampment at George Washington University in DC has been in full, hideous swing for days.  City officials refused to allow the police to help the school clear the encampment, despite an explicit request from GW to do so, citing bad ‘optics.’  Since then, the mob overran officers and barricades to expand their “encampment,” completely covered a Washington statue with Palestinian garb and other desecrations, booed and jeered when an American flag was unfurled overlooking their terrorism-supporting ‘protest,’ then projected a ‘Genocide Joe’ message over the flag.  What patriotic frat boys on various campuses seem to instinctively understand is that these people aren’t just anti-Israel; they overwhelmingly hate America, too.  That’s what drives so much of the dirtbag left.  These people despise Western civilization, and they’re deeply radical at heart….

What might DC officials think of these “optics”?  They generally coddle criminals, so it’s unclear if they’re offended by any of this.  Meanwhile, scenes at MIT:

They’re literally chanting for death, in English and Arabic, on US soil. I’ll leave you with thoughts from the leader of the University of Florida, who has handled this correctly from the start:

Go to Article
Excerpt from thepostmillennial.com

DC Metropolitan Police Department said that it would not help clear the Gaza camp set up by students and activists at George Washington University (GWU).

Metropolitan Police Department Chief of Police Pamela Smith said on Thursday, “I think here in the District of Columbia, we allow people the opportunity to have freedom of speech, and that’s what we’re seeing right now. There has been no violence, no violent behavior, no confrontations,” according to The Hill.

“If the behavior changes, then our procedures and our process might change.”

Go to Article
Excerpt from thehill.com

Former President Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election is putting GOP lawmakers in a tough spot, especially Senate GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who are running to become next Senate GOP leader and have pledged to work closely with Trump.

Both senators, allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), opposed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is in the mix to be Trump’s running mate, repeatedly refused to say Sunday he would accept the results of this year’s election.

Now, other Senate Republicans will face the same question, including Thune and Cornyn, who will have to balance their past positions on Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud with their ambitions to replace McConnell.

Go to Article
Excerpt from news.bloomberglaw.com

A Washington federal appeals court questioned the Justice Department’s claim that a five-year sentence for a Florida man who participated in the Capitol riot would be unchanged even if the lower court applied the wrong sentencing guideline.

The three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit considered arguments on Monday by Tristan Stevens that his convictions shouldn’t be classified as an “aggravated assault.” That classification triggered a longer prison sentence for assaulting an officer and other misconduct during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

Go to Article
Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 invasion of the Capitol, which has resulted in multiple convictions, and despite receiving increasing scrutiny by the press, you might be wondering what is happening with the recruiting efforts of White supremacist, neo-Nazi, and MAGA-supporting militia groups? Unfortunately, you need look no further than Facebook to see that these groups are boldly using the platform to recruit in plain sight.

According to WIRED magazine’s Tess Owen, “After lying low for several years … militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its ban against them, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project, shared exclusively with WIRED.”

In a WIRED piece titled “Extremist Militias Are Coordination in More Than 100 Facebook Groups” (https://www.wired.com/story/extremist-militias-are-coordinating-on-facebook/), Owen reported:

Individuals across the US with long-standing ties to militia groups are creating networks of Facebook pages, urging others to recruit ‘active patriots’ and attend meetups, and openly associating themselves with known militia-related sub-ideologies like that of the anti-government Three Percenter movement. They’re also advertising combat training and telling their followers to be ‘prepared’ for whatever lies ahead. These groups are trying to facilitate local organizing, state by state and county by county. Their goals are vague, but many of their posts convey a general sense of urgency about the need to prepare for ‘war’ or to ‘stand up’ against many supposed enemies, including drag queens, immigrants, pro-Palestine college students,

communists—and the US government.

Go to Article
Excerpt from amp.cnn.com

The church’s governing body marked a new era of LGBTQ inclusion by voting to lift the bans on LGBTQ clergy and on pastors performing same-sex unions. They also removed the language that said homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Many, including Woodworth, felt the changes were monumental.

“This change in our church law is so huge because it means that folks can choose to show up as who they really are and still choose to serve God,” she said.

Anjie Woodworth, who attended the meeting known as the “General Conference,” said she watched as, with each vote, many of her colleagues and friends dissolved into tears.