WORLD NEWS
Hurricane Beryl nears Category 5 strength; U.S. Embassy issues warning!
Hurricane Beryl strengthened as it churned toward several small Caribbean island nations on July 1st, officials said, as the U.S. Embassy issued a warning for American citizens who are visiting small island nations.
As of Monday at noon, the storm was rated as a Category 4 by the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), which reported that Beryl had winds of 150 mph—about 7 mph shy of a Category 5 hurricane.
Beryl will continue to “produce catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge” for the Grenadine Islands, Carriacou Island, and Grenada on Monday, the agency said.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, Grenada, Tobago, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines as thousands of people hunkered down in homes and shelters. The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
The storm was located about 15 miles west of Carriacou Island in Grenada and 30 miles north of the main island of Grenada itself, moving 20 mph west-northwest, according to the NHC.
Local media reports in St. Vincent and the Grenadines said they received reports of roofs being torn off churches and schools as communications began collapsing across the southeast Caribbean.
The Le Pen is mightier than the Macron sword! National rally crushes Macron’s socialists!
As expected, Le Pen’s conservative (or in the world’s of the liberal media, “Far Right”) National Rally (RN) party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on several days of horsetrading before next week’s run-off.
The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed. That was ahead of both far-left and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron’s Together alliance, whose bloc was seen winning a paltry 20.5%-23%, a far cry from his crushing victory several years ago. The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled left-wing coalition, was projected to win around 29% of the vote, the exit polls showed.
The exit polls were in line with opinion polls ahead of the election, but provided little clarity on whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN will be able to form a government to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron after next Sunday’s run-off.
The RN’s chances of winning power next week will depend on the political dealmaking made by its rivals over the coming days. In the past, center-right and center-left parties have teamed up to keep the RN from power, but that dynamic, known as the “republican front,” is less certain than ever.
If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the top two contenders automatically qualify for the second round, as well as all those with 12.5% of registered voters. In the run-off, whoever wins the most votes takes the constituency.
EU nation adopts six-day working week
Greece is trying to tackle shrinking productivity amid an exodus of skilled workers
The Greek government has allowed more businesses to impose a six-day working week on their employees in a bid to bolster the country’s struggling economy. Greece is the first member of the European Union to introduce the measure.
Under the legislation, which entered into effect on July 1, the six-day scheme will be limited to private businesses providing services within 24 hours, as well as those experiencing an exceptional workload. Workers engaged in the food service and tourism sectors are exempt.
Under the extended workweeks, employees in certain industries and manufacturing facilities have the right to choose between working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift. Employees will receive 40% extra pay for their sixth working day, or 115% more if they work on Sundays and holidays.
According to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the measure is expected to help the government combat steadily declining productivity related to a shrinking population and a shortage of skilled workers.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Biden warns Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity sets a dangerous precedent!
President Joe Biden said on Monday the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity set a “dangerous precedent” that could turn presidents into kings and called on the American people to “dissent” by rejecting Donald Trump in November’s election.
In clear, measured remarks from the White House, Biden said the court decision meant Trump was highly unlikely to go on trial before the Nov. 5 election for his role in seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and warned it could turn U.S. presidents into kings.
“This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law. Not even the president of the United States,” Biden said, reading from a teleprompter.
He said the court’s decision meant there were now virtually no limits on what a president could do.
“It’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law,” Biden said. “The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”
LGBTQ USA Today Poll – 41% of Democrats want Joe Biden to quit the 2024 race!
Forty-one percent of Democrat voters want President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, a Monday USA Today/Suffolk University poll found, while only 51 percent want him to remain on the ticket.
The poll represents one of the first post-debate polls that Democrat operatives and donors will study to determine the total damage to Biden’s candidacy following his debate performance.
By a five-to-one ratio, the poll found former President Donald Trump won the exchange. Only 28 percent of Biden supporters said he won.
Only 24 percent of Democrats said the debate increased their support for Biden, while nine percent said it made them want to support a third party candidate.
Sixty-four percent of independents, meanwhile, want Biden replaced on the ballot.
When asked about the impact of the debate, 26 percent of independents said it made them more likely to support Trump, nine percent Biden, and 17 percent said it made them more likely to vote for a third-party candidate.
Biden, who many media allies and Democrats said should drop out of the race, will press forward and remain a candidate for president, top officials told Axios. The decision appears heavily influenced by First Lady Jill Biden and additional family members, such as Hunter Biden, people who talk regularly with them told Axios.
The new public relations strategy includes more public interviews and press conferences. The plan is a change from Biden’s lack of media availability, a tactic criticized by the media, especially the New York Times.
AOC to file Articles of Impeachment against SCOTUS justices …
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she plans to file articles of impeachment against unnamed Supreme Court justices following the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity on Monday.
The only justice impeached in American history was Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805. The Senate acquitted him.
“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on X.
“Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return,” she said, without naming her target.
The Court’s ruling held in a six-to-three decision that presidents are covered by limited immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken in office.
Moving forward, the “case will now be remanded and will likely result in the dismissal of some or all of the charges facing the former president in federal court in Washington, DC, relating to the Capitol riot of January 6,” Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak wrote.
Former President Donald Trump, whom the ruling impacted, celebrated it as a “big win” for democracy. The ruling was the latest good news for Trump and his reelection campaign.
Democrats and the Biden campaign roundly condemned the ruling. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ripped it as a “disgraceful decision by the MAGA SCOTUS,” while Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused the Court of going “rogue.”
“Today’s ruling doesn’t change the facts, so let’s be very clear about what happened on January 6: Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election,” a senior Biden campaign official said in a statement.
A federal judge has blocked an Oklahoma law that bars illegal immigrants from the state!
A law enabling Oklahoma officials to order illegal immigrants to leave the state was blocked on June 28th by a federal judge, who said the statute is likely unconstitutional.
Oklahoma House Bill 4156, signed into law in April by Gov. Kevin Stitt, allows state charges to be brought against illegal immigrants who are found in Oklahoma. It also requires those convicted to leave the state within 72 hours.
U.S. officials sued over the law before it took effect on July 1st, arguing that it violated the U.S. Constitution by adopting a state- based immigration system that clashes with the federal system.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the court that granting the government’s bid to block the statute would “render the states helpless and passive vassals to a federal government that refuses to enforce its own laws in express and misguided deference to the whims of foreign governments.”
In his ruling on June 28, U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones sided with the Biden administration and entered an injunction as the case proceeds.
“Effectively, H.B. 4156 criminalizes conduct already proscribed under federal law,” Judge Jones said.
That means federal law preempts the new state law, according to the ruling.
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani disbarred following criminal indictments
Embattled former Mayor Rudy Giuliani – a former prosecutor known for his work in taking down the mob in the Big Apple – can no longer practice law in New York, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
“Rudolph William Giuliani, is disbarred from the practice of law, effective immediately, and until the further order of this Court, and his name stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law in the State of New York,” the First Department appeals court wrote in a decision released Tuesday.
Donald Trump’s legal team filed a letter Monday seeking to challenge the former president’s conviction in his New York criminal hush money trial based on the US Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, a source told CNN.
Just hours after the high court ruling, Trump’s lawyer filed a letter with Judge Juan Merchan seeking permission to file a motion to challenge the verdict, the source said. If the judge allows Trump to file the motion it could delay Trump’s sentencing – set for next week – to allow the parties to brief the issue.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
The Supreme Court allows retailer to challenge debit card swipe fees!
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 yesterday that a retailer can challenge the fees the Federal Reserve System allows banks to charge for processing debit card transactions, despite not filing the challenge before the usual six-year cutoff.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion in the case known as Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Dissenting were Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The respondent, the Federal Reserve System, is the central bank of the United States. Among its primary responsibilities are national monetary policy, supervising and regulating banks, maintaining financial stability, and providing banking services. The Federal Reserve also regulates credit cards.
The petitioner, the Corner Post, is a truck stop in Watford City, North Dakota, that filed a lawsuit challenging the Fed’s 2011 ruling on debit card fees.
Retail stores often impose minimum purchase requirements to make up for the percentage of sales they have to pay credit card issuers on transactions. The processing fees paid to issuers are determined by the Federal Reserve.
Congress approved the Durbin Amendment as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 that followed the so-called Great Recession of 2008. The amendment allowed the Fed to regulate “interchange fees” to reimburse large banks for expenses involved in transferring money from consumer accounts to merchants as part of debit card transactions.
Until 2010, interchange fees were determined by the issuers that process the transactions. The issuers had an incentive to boost the fees to compete for banks’ business, and those fees were passed on to merchants.
Merchants complained, and in 2011, to combat perceived abuses, the Fed made a rule capping the fees that large debit card-issuing banks could charge at 21 cents per transaction as well as 0.05 percent of the value of the purchase.
Federal Government To Pause Student Loan Payments, Interest For 3 Million Borrowers
In response to court rulings blocking key elements of the federal government’s new student loan repayment program, the Biden administration will be giving about 3 million borrowers a reprieve from their monthly payments.
The 3 million borrowers eligible for the pause are enrolled in the income-driven repayment program dubbed SAVE and have a monthly payment that is more than zero, according to the U.S. Department of Education. About 4.5 million SAVE enrollees who qualify for zero-dollar payments because of low incomes will not be included in the pause.
The payment pause is similar to the COVID-19 student loan relief that lasted for 3 1/2 years, from March 2020 through September 2023, during which borrowers didn’t have to pay monthly bills and interest didn’t accrue.
Borrowers who are eligible for the new pause will be informed directly in the coming days, a spokesperson for the Education Department told The Epoch Times.
The announcement was made days after a federal judge in Kansas, siding with attorneys general of three Republican-led states, blocked the implementation of the final segment of the SAVE plan but declined to unwind the portions of it that are already in place.
The blocked segment is a calculation formula update scheduled to take effect on July 1. It would have allowed borrowers with undergraduate loans to have their monthly payments capped at 5 percent of their discretionary income, down from the current 10 percent limit.
Borrowers with undergraduate and graduate school loans would also have seen a reduction in repayments, with the amount depending on the proportion of their graduate and undergraduate loan debt.
A separate ruling by a federal court in Missouri put SAVE’s debt discharge provisions on hold while litigation challenging the program moves forward. The SAVE plan offered debt cancellations for those who originally took out $12,000 or less in loans and have made at least 10 years of monthly payments.
Both of the judges presiding over the twin cases agreed that the SAVE plan, which uses the Higher Education Act to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in loan debt, goes beyond what the statute authorizes.
In his opinion, Judge John Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri said Congress did not intend to make debt forgiveness under the law as economically far-reaching as President Biden’s program.
“The court is not free to replace the language of the statute with unenacted legislative intent,” Judge Ross wrote.
“Congress has made it clear under what circumstances loan forgiveness is permitted, and the [income-contingent repayment] plan is not one of those circumstances.”
HEALTH
6 Chaga Mushroom Benefits, According to Research
Here are the most notable benefits we know so far
Like many other adaptogenic mushrooms, chaga mushroom’s benefits are being explored more and more by researchers. This type of functional mushroom—which also goes by the name “the Cinder Conk” and, more formally, Inonotus obliquus—has all kinds of benefits, including being antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, prebiotic, and more.
While they’re full of potential medicinal properties, chaga isn’t your typical produce-section mushroom (which boast healthy nutritional benefits of their own). You won’t likely find them in your local supermarket, but you don’t have to go foraging in the woods to get your hands on this fungus. You can order chaga mushrooms online @ www.thepowermall.com
Top Benefits of Chaga Mushrooms
The research around medicinal mushrooms, including chagas, is still ongoing—but this fungus has been utilized for health and healing across the globe for centuries for a reason. Here’s what we know so far about the health benefits chaga mushrooms can deliver.
- Chaga Mushrooms Are Packed With Anti-Inflammatory Compounds
- Chaga Mushrooms Are a Noteworthy Source of Antioxidants
- Chaga Mushrooms Show Promising Immunity-Boosting Effects
- Chaga Mushrooms May Improve Gut Health via Prebiotics
- Chaga Mushrooms May Help Lower Bad Cholesterol
- Chaga Mushrooms Indicate Anti-Cancer and Anti-Tumor Effects
- Chaga Mushrooms May Lower Blood Sugar
- Chaga Mushrooms Are Stress Reducing
Power Mall Products of Interest:
ChagaMax Caps & Chag-o-Power Drops
Major pediatric medical group plotted to ‘circumvent’ child sex-change bans
I would love to strategize to provide care to ban-states on their borders’
Members of America’s leading pediatric medical association discussed possible ways to “circumvent” red states’ bans on sex change procedures and drugs for children, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The emails are part of a trove of documents that show how the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the country’s largest professional association of pediatricians with a membership of 67,000 doctors, quietly partnered with transgender activist groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), to push child sex changes nationwide.
Internal AAP communications from July 2023 show members strategizing ways to provide sex change interventions to children living in states that have banned the procedures, including using telehealth to access hormones from out of state providers. Currently, 25 states have passed legislation banning or restricting pediatric sex change.
Through a public records request, the DCNF obtained the internal communications from members of the AAP’s Section on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health and Wellness (SOLGBTHW), a group within the AAP that provides the organization with expertise and education on LGBT issues.The AAP has multiple subgroups or “sections” within the organization that focus on different specialty areas of medicine to connect “like-minded professionals who share a pediatric subspecialty, surgical specialty, special area of interest, or stage of life.” The section on LGBT health requires an additional fee for AAP members to join. Health professionals who are not pediatricians, such as registered nurses, psychologists, and social workers, are also able to join the group as a section affiliate.
In a July 2023 email thread Dr. Patricia Wells, an AAP Fellow and part of the LGBT health section email group, drew attention to a federal court ruling that allowed Tennessee’s ban on child sex changes to take effect, calling it a “huge setback.” Wells requested help from her colleagues to “circumvent” the Tennessee ban, suggesting telehealth as a possible option to deliver medical interventions to minors.
“Question for this group: Can we coordinate care to offer Telehealth to kids sick in ban-states?” Wells wrote. “I would love a breakdown of what states still allow Telehealth into their states, and if that could circumvent the [Tennessee] ban.”
“We have had calls from frantic parents in other states, ie Indiana [sic], to see if they can establish care with us,” Wells wrote to the group. “If you are in one of the ban states and need help caring for you patients, please let me know what I can do. I would love for this group to strategize to provide care to ban-states on their borders.”
It’s unclear if any action was taken to circumvent Tennessee or other red state’s bans on child sex changes. Wells did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Tennessee State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who sponsored the legislation that banned pediatric sex changes, told the DCNF the law specifically prohibits using telehealth to provide minors with sex change medical interventions.
“Our law clearly states that prescribing medications or procedures for the purpose of treating gender dysphoria in minor children is prohibited, including via telehealth. Any doctor attempting to use general telehealth services to circumvent this law is violating the legislature’s clear intent,” Johnson said in a statement.
The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear a case challenging Tennessee’s child sex change ban. The AAP, with the support of WPATH submitted an amicus brief in December 2023 in support of overturning the state’s child sex change ban. For years, AAP has quietly partnered with WPATH to fight back against child sex change bans, the DCNF reported.
“I am extremely proud of the work we have done to protect children from the long-term, irreversible and damaging effects of these medical practices. I am grateful the Supreme Court will be taking up our law soon and remain hopeful they will provide further and unequivocal legal clarity to the situation,” Johnson said.
‘We Have A Planned Parenthood’
Dr. Jean Wagner, an AAP Fellow and member of the LGBT health section, responded to Wells’ email hours later, noting that Planned Parenthood of Illinois might be able to “prescribe/manage” cross-sex hormones for kids via telehealth.
“We have had to look elsewhere for our kids who are ready to take the step of starting hormones,” Wagner wrote. “We have a Planned Parenthood near us in Fairview Heights, IL. They will prescribe/manage the hormones and I believe they do Telehealth for kids over 16.”
Transgender hormone therapy is available at Planned Parenthood Illinois via telehealth for individuals 16 and over, per their website, which states their “doors are open to everyone – regardless of your zip code.”
Planned Parenthood Illinois has experienced explosive growth in their transgender services category, increasing from 3,299 transgender visits in 2020 to 6842 visits in 2022, according to their annual reports. The group’s 2022 report said cross sex hormone therapy was “growing faster than any other service.” Planned Parenthood of Illinois received nearly $150,000 in state insurance payments for transgender services in 2022, records obtained by the DCNF via a public records requests show.
Neither Wagner nor Planned Parenthood Illinois responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
8 Home Remedies to Eliminate Tomato Blossom End Rot
Tomato blossom end rot is a common problem that frustrates many gardeners. Characterized by dark, sunken spots on the blossom end of the fruit, this disorder is caused by a calcium deficiency in the developing tomatoes.
Fortunately, there are several effective home remedies to prevent and treat blossom end rot, ensuring your tomato plants produce healthy, vibrant fruits.
Here are some practical solutions you can try in your garden.
- Epsom Salt
- Crushed Eggshells
- Calcium Spray
- Bone Meal
- Dolomite Lime
- Consistent Watering
- Compost
- Avoid High Nitrogen Fertilizers
By incorporating these home remedies—Epsom salt, crushed eggshells, calcium spray, bone meal, dolomite lime, consistent watering, compost, and balanced fertilization—you can effectively prevent and treat blossom end rot.
Implement these strategies to enjoy a healthy, abundant harvest of tomatoes free from this common disorder.
2ND AMENDMENT
Constitutional carry takes effect July 4, 2024, in Louisiana but the city of New Orleans will
continue to require concealed carry permits until August 1.
WWLTV reported that on Monday, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick indicated that New Orleans Municipal Code 54-341, “which was on the city’s law books since the 1950s, will trump state law and require gun owners to have a permit until [54-341] expires August 1.”
Kirkpatrick noted that officers have had special training to handle the weeks between constitutional carry taking effect and 54-341 sunsetting: “NOPD officers have been in mandatory training, learning what they can and cannot do so that they don’t violate any person’s constitutional rights against an illegal search and seizure.”
The NOPD posted a PSA to provide “responsible gun owners” they need to know about the state’s switch to constitutional carry:
On April 18, 2024, just over a month after constitutional carry was signed by Gov. Jeff Landry (R), Breitbart News reported NOPD’s Kirkpatrick wanted to create gun-free zones within the city where even licensed concealed carriers would be barred from carrying for self-defense.
On July 2, 2024, AXIOS noted that NOPD is launching “a zone of protection” that will consist of “about five blocks spanning from Canal Street to Toulouse, including some of the busiest blocks of Bourbon Street.”
COVID RELATED NEWS
Jury awards $687,000 to BCBS scientist fired for refusing the COVID-19 jab!
A federal jury awarded $687,000 to a biostatistical research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield in Tennessee in 2021 for refusing to comply with her employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Tanja Benton, who had worked 16 years at the firm when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,ooo in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.
Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted fetal cell lines were involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and she could not “in good conscience consume the vaccine, which would not only defile her body but also anger and dishonor God.”
BlueCross BlueShield said her position involved “regular external public-facing interactions” so she couldn’t keep it. Ms. Benton said her position became fully remote in 2020 but BlueCross BlueShield said it would have involved some in-person interaction with clients.
Ms. Benton was told to pursue other positions within the company and applied for two. But she was fired on Nov. 4, 2021, and told five days later that, “Unfortunately, all positions require the vax now,” according to an email entered in the case.
Her lawsuit charged that BlueCross BlueShield violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says an employer may not “discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of that person’s religion. Employers can disregard religious exemption requests if they can prove accommodating them would create undue hardship.
BlueCross BlueShield was also accused of violating the Tennessee Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination by employers at the state level.
ICYMI
Don Henley sues to reclaim handwritten Hotel California lyric sheets …
Eagles front man Don Henley has filed a lawsuit to reclaim ownership of his handwritten lyric sheets for the band’s hit 1976 album, “Hotel California.”
Prosecutors dropped a criminal case in March against three collectibles experts accused of scheming to sell the documents, which Mr. Henley maintains were stolen.
Mr. Henley’s new lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment to establish his ownership of approximately 100 pages of handwritten lyric sheets.
His attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, issued a statement to Rolling Stone magazine.
“Don Henley has filed suit today in a New York federal court for the return of property that was stolen from him—his private handwritten notes and lyrics to the iconic songs from the Hotel California album,” Mr. Petrocelli said. “These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit.”
The title track of the album, “Hotel California,” was a collaborative effort with songwriting credits going to Don Felder for the music and Don Henley and Glenn Frey for the lyrics.
The lyric sheets in question are currently being held by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In his lawsuit, Mr. Henley is seeking a court declaration that he is the rightful owner of the lyric sheets and that they should be returned to him.
The complaint details how Mr. Henley discovered his manuscripts were missing after a man named Edward Kosinski attempted to auction four lyric sheets in 2012, Variety reported. Mr. Kosinski claimed he obtained the pages from Ed Sanders, who was hired by the Eagles in 1979 to write a book about the band that never came to fruition.
According to the suit, Mr. Sanders kept Mr. Henley’s materials and sold five notepads in 2007 to book dealer Glenn Horowitz, who then sold them to Mr. Kosinski and Craig Inciardi in 2012. In the following years, Mr. Kosinski and Mr. Inciardi allegedly tried to ransom the pages back to Mr. Henley, who notified law enforcement.
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