Ukraine’s SBU state security service launched a series of raids on the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) as part of an investigation into allegations that officials within the agency have been cooperating with Russia.
The SBU said on Monday that it had arrested two officials working for NABU, one a suspected Russian spy and the other over alleged business ties to Russia.
ABSTRACT: Online misinformation can provoke social disputes, promote the normalization of prejudice, and bias social perceptions of social groups. In Israel, where society is already polarized, exposure to misinformation could exacerbate existing tensions between the ultra-orthodox (Haredi) and the general population.
Furthermore, the low digital literacy of the Haredi population presumably makes them more vulnerable to the influence of misinformation.
This study compared the ability of Haredi and non-Haredi Jews to detect misinformation, while examining the relationship between misinformation detection and digital literacy and knowledge. 83 Jewish participants (Haredi and non-Haredi) evaluated the credibility of online news articles. Eye tracking technology was used to examine participants’ scan patterns and attention to information metadata. The results showed that Haredi participants were less successful in identifying false messages and less attentive to metadata.
However, when combined with other predictors in multivariate regression, Haredi became a non-significant predictor, and digital knowledge and activity on social networks were found to be significant and strong predictors of misinformation identification. In terms of digital literacy, while there was no difference in subjective assessment, the study found a significant gap between the two populations in terms of psychophysiological behavioral indices (i.e., scan patterns) and digital knowledge.
The implications of such dramatic differences in skills and the vulnerability to false messages of a secluded, disadvantaged population, as well as the need to invest resources to increase digital literacy among the Haredi population to reduce these gaps, are discussed.
As Israel continues its assault on Gaza, enables settler violence in the West Bank, and launches strikes on Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, American conservatives are taking special note of one form of Israeli belligerence: attacks on Christians in the Holy Land.
An Israeli tank last week shelled the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three and gravely wounding several. Over in the West Bank, settlers in recent weeks have intensified their attacks on Christian communities, including in the town of Taybeh, where they set cars aflame and erected a sign that read “there is no future for you here,” among other indignities.
Many American Christians, including high-profile MAGA influencers, have had enough—jeopardizing one of Israel’s most vital bases of Western support.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee revised without fanfare its eligibility rules to comply with President Trump’s executive order on women’s sports, effectively barring male-born athletes from competing on women’s teams across the Olympic landscape.
A Christian man has been arrested in Lahore under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, following what local rights groups allege is a fabricated accusation stemming from a neighbourhood dispute—not a religious offence.
Aamir Masih, a retired government education worker and father of two, was taken into custody by South Cantonment police after Sanwar Ali, a Muslim shopkeeper in Nishat Colony, lodged a complaint accusing Masih of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The FIR was registered under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, a section that carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment or death.
The complainant alleges that Masih made the remarks during a discussion in his shop about the country’s current political and economic challenges. According to the FIR, Masih fled the scene when confronted.
However, local residents and human rights defenders have strongly contested the allegations, saying the charge is being misused to settle a personal grudge related to a drainage dispute.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday in a bid to regain momentum amid falling approval ratings and potential clashes with the new, opposition-backed nationalist president.
Since Karol Nawrocki’s victory over Tusk’s liberal ally Rafal Trzaskowski in June’s presidential election, dissension within the ruling pro-European coalition has grown, raising doubt about its future under a veto-wielding head of state.
German court acquits satirist over social media post following Trump assassination attempt – MSN Source Link Excerpt:
A German court on Wednesday acquitted a satirist who was charged with having approved of an assassination attempt against Donald Trump during last year’s U.S. election campaign in a social media post and disturbed the public peace.
In a quickly deleted post under his alias “El Hotzo” on X in July last year, Sebastian Hotz drew a parallel between Trump and “the last bus” and wrote “unfortunately just missed.” In a follow-up post, he wrote: “I find it absolutely fantastic when fascists die.”
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong judge on Wednesday ruled to strike down regulations criminalizing the use of bathrooms designated for the opposite sex, ruling in favor of transgender individuals’ rights to access public toilets matching their identity.
Judge Russell Coleman approved the judicial review of K, who was born a woman and identifies as a man, saying the regulations contravene an article of the city’s mini-constitution that stipulates all residents should be equal before the law.
But he suspended the declaration to strike down the regulations for a year to allow the government “to consider whether it wishes to implement a way to deal with the contravention.”
He said in the judgement that the regulations and “drawing the line of a person’s biological sex at birth create a disproportionate and unnecessary intrusion into the privacy and equality rights.”
The ruling marks another step forward in recognizing the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Chinese financial hub. In recent years, the government has revised policies following activists’ wins in legal challenges.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The UN’s highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis.
After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.
A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions. First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
“The stakes could not be higher. The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,” Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the island nation of Vanuatu, told the court during a week of hearings in December.
In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Having done a trade deal with US President Donald Trump, Japan’s prime minister will soon announce his resignation, reports said Wednesday, after his latest election debacle left his coalition without a majority now in both houses of parliament.
The reports said Shigeru Ishiba had conveyed his intention to step down to those close to him, following the announcement Wednesday of a US-Japan trade deal.
Sunday’s upper house election was calamitous for Ishiba’s centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost continuously since 1955.
Voters angry at inflation turned to other parties, notably the “Japanese first” Sanseito, whose “anti-globalist” drive echoes the agenda of populist movements elsewhere.
Members of the House anxious to call for the release of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein will have to wait until September, and some of them are not happy about it.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that even as momentum grows to have whatever the Justice Department files contain splashed before the public, the House will not act on a resolution to call for their release, according to The Hill.
The House is scheduled to begin its August recess on Thursday. It returns Sept. 2.
“Here’s what I would say about the Epstein files: There is no daylight between the House Republicans, the House, and the president on maximum transparency,” Johnson said Monday.
“He has said that he wants all the credible files related to Epstein to be released. He’s asked the attorney general to request the grand jury files of the court. All of that is in process right now,” he said.
An activist federal judge says Planned Parenthood may have a First Amendment right to challenge a law that deprives it of federal Medicaid dollars.
Massachusetts District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled last night that Planned Parenthood can challenge a provision in the recently passed federal budget reconciliation bill which generally prohibits abortion vendors from receiving Medicaid dollars. The judge’s ruling extends a temporary injunction she offered soon after the passage of the bill; in fact, the temporary restraining order was unbelievably fast and unrealistic according to at least one legal scholar.
Much of the ruling reads like a Planned Parenthood news release, with the decision repeating the false claim that only 4% of what the abortion vendor does is abortion. (The corporation used to claim it was 3%).
However, the ruling does not completely stop the defunding of Planned Parenthood. It only applies to Planned Parenthood affiliates who will not be killing babies as of Oct. 1, 2025 and to those who received less than $800,000 in Medicaid payments in fiscal year 2023 (which is part of the law).
As the now-familiar wailing of air-raid sirens echoed across Ukraine on Sunday night, civilians across the country again sought refuge in metro stations, underground shelters and dimly lit basements, bracing for yet another massive Russian aerial assault.
This comes as Ag Pam Bondi has said the DOJ is meeting with Maxwell soon.
The House Oversight Committee has voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell over the Epstein files.
The House Oversight Committee has voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, the girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to the Independent. She is currently serving a 20-year prison term in Tallahassee for her involvement in a sex trafficking scheme.
The vote in the committee was done by voice vote, which will force Maxwell to testify before House Oversight. This comes after fallout from a DOJ memo that stated Epstein did not kill himself, and that he did not have any incriminating “client list.”
Upon the contents of the memo becoming public, there has been ire directed at the DOJ by Democrats as well as some Republicans claiming that there has not been enough transparency with the files.
Israel successfully assassinated 19 senior Iranian nuclear scientists during the 12-Day War, depriving Tehran’s atomic “weapons program of its most capable and experienced personnel,” according to a new intelligence assessment by a leading nonproliferation organization.
The military campaign evaporated decades of nuclear know-how, striking at the heart of Tehran’s weapons program in a way kinetic attacks could not, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
“This act weakened Iran’s base for building nuclear weapons, eliminating needed expertise and hard-to-get management experience,” the organization determined. “This time the Israeli effort is different, and recovering may be far more difficult and take far longer.”
The TikTok ends with an AI-generated version of Obama ending up in prison.
It’s rare to see more than one unifying topic on the internet, but July 2025 ushered in two social media obsessions. One was the Coldplay cheating scandal and the jumbotron footage heard ’round the world. The other was the existence, or alleged lack thereof, of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. The latter has folks on both sides of the political spectrum in a frenzy.
The Democrats are putting pressure on President Donald Trump and his administration to release the files, suggesting his lack of transparency could be some sort of cover-up. The MAGA Republicans have done a full 180 and are now gaslighting their constituents into oblivion.
In an effort to distract everyone from the Epstein controversy, the president shared a bizarre video of Barack Obama being arrested.
The chances of a pregnancy with triplets are rare, and opportunities for pregnancy help organizations to help women pregnant with multiple babies are also rare.
According to 2023 birth data released in March by the Centers for Disease Control, the number of triplet births in America was 2,505 with triplet and higher multiple births averaging 73.8 per 100,000 live births. The number of twin births was more than 110,000, averaging 30.7 per 1,000 live births. And according to RaisingMultiples.org, the chance of a woman in the United States becoming pregnant with triplets is 1 in 6,889, and the chance becoming pregnant with twins is 1 in 83 pregnancies.
A pregnancy medical clinic in Missouri is assisting its second client carrying natural triplets in a decade and is also currently working with another woman pregnant with twins.
Treasury Secretary Bessent Calls for Review of Federal Reserve– gellerreport.com Source Link Excerpt:
As prepared for delivery
Good evening, it’s an honor to be with you tonight.
Let me first express my appreciation to Vice Chair Bowman for arranging tomorrow’s conference. The Vice Chair has certainly hit the ground running, and we are all impressed by her early results.
I share with her a strong view on the urgency of reform. And I especially agree with the high priority she has given as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board to issues affecting our community banks.
In past remarks, I have made clear that we need a fundamental reset of financial regulation. And the Treasury Department is committed to playing an active role in this effort. That’s why earlier this year, I laid out guiding principles to build a financial system that delivers for both Wall Street and Main Street.
In the months since, we have begun delivering on that promise.
The bank regulators have proposed a recalibration of leverage capital requirements, ended the use of politicized reputation risk, proposed to rescind a byzantine 60,000-word Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rule, launched work to focus supervision on material financial risks, started an interagency process on BSA/CFT reforms, and begun the effort to modernize our regulatory capital framework.
These first steps are chipping away at years of regulatory accretion. But isolated measures are not enough. We need deeper reforms rooted in a long-term blueprint for innovation, financial stability, and resilient growth.
Despite bank regulators’ significant influence on our economy, up until now, financial regulation has not been nested in a broader strategic vision for the financial system.
Instead, we have seen regulation by reflex. Rather than preempting crises, regulators all too often react to them after the fact. They play the role of a hazmat cleanup team instead of preventing dangerous spillovers in the first place. This is especially true in the case of supervisory failures, where regulators often overcompensate by piling rule on top of rule, based on an incomplete understanding of the larger costs and benefits to society. This reactionary approach can generate regulations at odds with our domestic and international priorities.
Some argue that in the past, regulatory weakening occurred when regulators failed to keep pace. And yet, the financial regulators have not, up to now, kept pace with digital assets or comprehended how their regulation by reflex was undermining the community bank model. Post-mortems to recent crises have been more self-serving exercises designed to support longstanding political agendas rather than honest, searching assessments about how to improve the system.
Rather than reflexively regulate anything that hits the headlines, we need to instead be more explicit about our vision for the financial system.
Defining that vision requires value judgments. And so, it cannot be a purely technocratic exercise. Instead, defining a path forward requires leadership with a broad perspective and coordination across the whole of government. The Treasury Department is perfectly positioned to provide that leadership.
Since Secretary Hamilton’s Assumption Plan, Treasury has worked to articulate a coherent vision for our financial system. Since Secretary Chase, Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been responsible for our national banking system. And since our country’s founding, Treasury has led emergency responses to every major financial crisis.
Treasury also has a broad remit to shape a vision for our financial system. Our domestic mandate includes fostering economic growth and stability. We represent America’s economic interests abroad. And we strengthen national security by protecting the integrity of the financial system.
Consistent with that longstanding practice, I intend for Treasury to drive financial regulatory policy that puts American workers first, prioritizes growth, safeguards financial stability, and protects our national security.
To be clear, the bank regulators must continue to carry out their statutory mandates—maintaining safety and soundness, protecting consumers, and mitigating risks to financial stability. Rationalizing and tailoring regulation does not have to amount to regulatory weakening.
But in parallel, Treasury will convene interagency consultations to define a strategic policy direction.
To that end, Treasury will encourage bank regulators to consider how proposed rules will impact growth.
We will center financial regulation on Main Street, not Wall Street.
We will protect the viability of our community banks.
We will be vigilant against debanking of customers based on religious or political views on either side of the aisle.
We will reject international standard setting that does not advance America’s interests.
We will support innovation both within and outside the financial system.
We will drive alignment between our illicit finance program and our national security priorities.
And we will ensure the big questions of the day are answered consistent with America’s long-term interests. This includes the regulation of digital assets, the future of housing finance, and financial sector support for the onshoring of US manufacturing.
In all these efforts, Treasury’s most important contribution might simply be to reinforce the urgency of reform. To that end, the department will break through policy inertia, settle turf battles, drive consensus, and motivate action to ensure no single regulator holds up reform.
Which brings me to the topic of tomorrow’s conference.
We need to take a closer look at regulatory capital requirements.
Outdated capital requirements on some exposures are misaligned with actual risk, imposing unnecessary burdens on financial institutions. Excessive capitalization, for example, reduces bank lending. This stymies growth and distorts market structure in ways that increase risk. How? By driving lending out of the regulated banking system to nonbank intermediaries.
I look forward to seeing a proposal that addresses this and other known deficiencies in our antiquated capital framework.
At the same time, I hope that the proposal will simplify and rationalize the framework. On that note, there is an incredibly consequential—albeit quite technical—structural issue that regulators should address early on.
Under the July 2023 proposal, a bank would have been subject to two sets of capital requirements—first, a modernized set, and second, a legacy set based largely on today’s current “standardized approach”—with the greater of the two being the binding requirement.
This dual-requirement structure did not derive from a principled calibration methodology. It was motivated simply to reverse-engineer higher and higher capital aggregates. It also was at odds with capital reform as a modernization project because it would have preserved the antiquated capital requirements as the binding floor for many, perhaps most, large banks.
Bank regulators should consider abandoning this flawed dual-requirement structure.
Modernizing regulatory capital likely would mean reduced capital requirements for mortgage loans and some other exposures that are core to the community bank model. We cannot give only large banks the benefit of these reduced requirements, as actually contemplated by the last administration. One possible solution would be to give each bank that is not subject to the modernized requirements the choice to opt in. This would result in a meaningful reduction in capital for those banks.
I will close by reiterating my support for the Fed’s open-mindedness on the need for regulatory modernization. I am grateful for economic policymakers at the Fed who understand the urgency of reorienting financial regulation and the critical need to preserve a central role for community banks.
It is promising to see so much interest in this important topic, and I look forward to continuing to work with you all on regulatory capital reform.
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is an international organization that runs under the auspices of the United Nations. UNESCO’s charter is to promote “… cooperation in education, science, culture and communication to foster peace worldwide.” Among other things, UNESCO administers World Heritage sites. But in recent years, UNESCO has also been accused of slanted, pro-China, pro-Palestine stances, among other woke priorities.
On Tuesday, the New York Post broke the story that President Trump is withdrawing the United States from UNESCO due to these priorities. Under President Biden, the U.S. rejoined UNESCO in 2021, after President Reagan withdrew the U.S. from the organization in 1983.
Trump ordered a 90-day review of America’s presence in UNESCO back in February, with special emphasis on probing any “anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment within the organization.”
Upon conducting the review, administration officials took issue with UNESCO’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies as well as its pro-Palestinian and pro-China bias, a White House official told The Post.
An appellate court ruled the Trump administration can move forward with ending temporary deportation protections for thousands of Afghan and Cameroonian nationals.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is allowed to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 10,000 Afghans and Cameroonians while a court challenge against the move continues to play out in court, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The court determined that while CASA — an immigration advocacy group suing DHS — has a plausible case, there is not enough evidence to block the TPS phaseout while the court challenge continues.
“We agree with the district court that CASA, Inc. has stated a plausible claim for relief with regard to the alleged ‘preordained’ decision to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghanistan and Cameroon, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in favor of CASA, Inc,” the court stated, according to court documents.
“At this procedural posture, however, there is insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement of agency action pending appeal,” the ruling continued.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a major change in sanctuary status for Louisville Tuesday morning as the administration continues its pressure campaign against Democrat mayors and governors for harboring violent criminal illegal aliens.
“In a major victory for the Department of Justice, the city of Louisville is dropping its sanctuary city policies as a result of a strong written warning from my office,” Bondi announced. “This should set an example to other cities. Instead of forcing us to sue you — which we will, without hesitation — follow the law, get rid of sanctuary policies, and work with us to fix the illegal immigration crisis.”
The news comes just one day after Border Czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration is going to “flood the zone” to find criminals in sanctuary jurisdictions across the country.
🚨🚨🚨Tom Homan has a message for sanctuary cities:
“I will work very hard with Secretary Noem to keep President Trump’s promise and his commitment several weeks ago that sanctuary cities are now our PRIORITY. We’re gonna FLOOD THE ZONE.” pic.twitter.com/wnb6Qfh7Wi
.@RealTomHoman on NYC: “We’re going to FLOOD THE ZONE of sanctuary cities. We’re sending additional agents… If they don’t give us access to the bad guy in Rikers Island or at the precincts, then we’ll go into the neighborhood and find him. We’re not going to give up on this.” pic.twitter.com/yRG1U2cdLM
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 22, 2025
In the aftermath of the Wall Street Journal publishing what President Donald Trump has called a “fake” birthday card from him to Jeffrey Epstein, a reporter has been booted from a press pool covering Trump’s upcoming trip to Scotland.
The outlet alleged it found a 2003 letter from Trump to Epstein, which Trump denies. He has called the story “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
Tarini Parti, a White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was supposed to be part of the media pool covering Trump’s upcoming trip to his golf courses in Scotland.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Parti will not be allowed on the trip, according to Politico.
“As the appeals court confirmed, the Wall Street Journal or any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces,” Leavitt said in a statement.
“Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board. Every news organization in the entire world wishes to cover President Trump, and the White House has taken significant steps to include as many voices as possible.”
President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is firing dozens of career prosecutors, sparking alarm among his critics.
Critics have accused Trump of departing from established norms with his sweeping shakeup of the DOJ.
The firings of Democrat-loyal DOJ officials have played a central role in Trump’s efforts to end the weaponization of the justice system.
Trump’s rise as a politician led Democrats to embrace the justice system as a defense of “our democracy.”
Democrats welcomed politically motivated criminal investigations into Trump in an effort to derail his return to the White House.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired several prosecutors who were involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s politically explosive investigations of Trump in 2024.
