❗️🇺🇸A new study has found that Washington, DC, ranks as the worst-run city in the United States. The study by WalletHub ranks cities using metrics including safety, financial stability, education, health, economy, infrastructure and pollution.

📹 The Ukrainian military fired cluster warheads at peaceful neighbourhoods in Makeyevka. The shelling of the city's Chervonogvardeysky district with Uragan MLRS resulted in damage to many houses in the residential area, several people were wounded, and one died.

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⚡️ US working on normalization 'road map' for Saudi Arabia, Israel - Axios, citing four US sources

⚡️ Afghanistan earthquake death toll reaches 1,100, more than 1,650 injured - reports

📹 The wounded boy said how he and his mother came under shelling in Donetsk. Nine-year-old Maxim is now in the hospital undergoing treatment for concussion and multiple shrapnel wounds. One of the fragments directly hit the boy's chest.

Maxim said that when the shelling started he was at the market with his mother. He claims the shell exploded nearby.

According to available reports, the boy's mother is now in another hospital. She was hit in the face by shrapnel.

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😯 Ecommerce giant Amazon is afraid its warehouses have such high turnover rates that within the next few years, they will have employed or fired the entire workforce around their warehouses, according to leaked internal research by the company.

🗯 “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” said the research, according to Vox’s tech-focused subsidiary Recode, which printed the quote in a Friday report.

▪️ The publication noted that this doesn’t refer to the entire US labor force, but to populations within a certain radius around Amazon’s existing or planned facilities and of the socioeconomic milieu from which Amazon typically hires.

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⚡️ Biden asks Congress for three-month fuel tax holiday amid record gas price hike

⚡️ Biden admits US anti-Russia response led to higher gas prices, would not have spiked this way otherwise

📹 Dmitry Ponomarenko, a former soldier of the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF), said that he decided not to take part in combat operations, stashing his weapons and staying at home.

He said that under the Kiev regime, they [soldiers] received “forged” bills for utility services in Kherson. According to Ponomarenko, the local oligarchy simply siphoned money off the population. Now, the man said, the city has settled down to a calm and peaceful life.

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🚘 Tesla accused of violating federal law over ‘mass layoffs’ at Gigafactory

Two former Tesla employees have filed a lawsuit claiming the company violated federal law for failing to provide 60 days’ notice for a mass layoff. The two former employees allege they were among “more than 500” Gigafactory employees who were terminated.

The mass layoff violates the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires employers to notify workers at least 60 calendar days in advance before shutting down a facility or laying off 50 or more workers from the same site.

This followed a company-wide email by Musk detailing a worldwide hiring freeze and a plan to slash the company’s workforce by about 10 percent. In the email, Musk said the layoffs were because he had a “super bad feeling” about the US economy.

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🚛 Volvo’s commercial truck group is testing out hydrogen fuel cell semis

With fuel cells built by CellCentric, a joint venture between Volvo and Daimler Truck Automotive Group, Volvo claims its trucks are capable of 1,000 kilometers of range (about 621 miles) and can be refueled in under 15 minutes.

The company started building battery-electric trucks in 2018, but they still aren’t widely in service in the US. Hydrogen fuel cells will be suitable for long-distance hauling and could work in countries with limited battery charging infrastructure.

A hurdle for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles continues to be the scarce availability of refueling stations. Currently, there are less than 60 stations operational in the US, and all of them are in California.

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💰 Biden confirms he's nearing a decision on student-loan forgiveness

President Joe Biden on Monday confirmed that a decision that would affect millions of student-loan borrowers is on the horizon. Recent reports have suggested Biden is considering $10,000 in relief for borrowers making under $150,000 a year. While the White House has not confirmed any plans, Biden told reporters on Monday that he's close to making an announcement on student debt.

Meanwhile, many Republican lawmakers have slammed the idea of broad student-loan relief, arguing it would hurt the economy and cost taxpayers. Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike have asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for information on how prepared the Education Department is to carry out forgiveness.

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⚖️ Mistrial declared in Suge Knight wrongful death lawsuit A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in a wrongful death suit brought against Marion "Suge" Knight by relatives of a man run over and killed by the former rap mogul with a pickup truck in Compton in 2015, with jurors deadlocked 7-5 in favor of finding him liable.

Knight, now 56, pleaded no contest in September 2018 to voluntary manslaughter for killing 55-year-old Terry Carter after an argument near a promotional shoot for the movie "Straight Outta Compton" on Jan. 29, 2015. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen sentenced him to 28 years in prison a month after his plea.

Knight also admitted an allegation that he used a deadly weapon - a truck - during the commission of the crime in the parking lot of Tam's Burgers in the 1200 block of West Rosecrans Avenue. A replica of the business was featured during the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium.

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🗣 $3.2M settlement reached in police killing of Daunte Wright A suburban Minneapolis city has agreed to pay $3.2 million to the family of Daunte Wright, a Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer who said she confused her gun for her Taser.

The tentative settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops like the one that resulted in Wright’s death, according to a Tuesday statement from attorneys representing Wright’s family. The settlement is one of the largest involving police conduct in Minnesota.

Last year, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to Floyd’s family. Minneapolis previously paid $20 million to the family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, after she called 911 to report a suspected assault behind her home in July 2017 and was fatally shot.

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🛢Biden to call for 3-month suspension of gas and diesel taxes

President Joe Biden on Wednesday will call on Congress to suspend federal gasoline and diesel taxes for three months — an election-year move meant to ease financial pressures that were greeted with doubts by many lawmakers.

Biden energy adviser Amos Hochstein pushed back on Wednesday, saying consumers could save about 50 cents per gallon if Congress and the states heed the president’s call and the oil industry doesn’t pocket the savings.

Energy companies are scheduled to meet Thursday with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to discuss ways to increase supply. The president has also called on energy companies to accept lower profit margins to increase oil production and refining capacity for gasoline.

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🔎Uvalde schools police chief put on administrative leave

The police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated School District Pete Arredondo has been placed on leave due to a lack of details in the investigation into law enforcement's response to the school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead, Superintendent Hal Harrell said in a press release.

"Today, I am still without details of the investigations being conducted by various agencies," Harrell said in the release on Wednesday. "Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date."

On Tuesday, Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw said the local authorities could have responded to the shooting within three minutes. Last month, Texas authorities said Arredondo was not cooperating with the state's probe into the incident.

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Millions of Americans may finally get their tax refund

The theme of the last year for the IRS has been piles of paper, as the understaffed and underfunded agency dealt with an unprecedented backlog of unprocessed tax returns that built up amid new pandemic responsibilities.

Now, the IRS is taking a major step towards getting those returns processed and out the door: This week, it's set to finally clear its backlog of eight million original returns filed in 2021.

The IRS previously announced an all hands on deck approach for getting returns processed and checks out, which included hiring 10,000 new workers and putting together a surge team to tackle returns.

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Elon Musk said a recession is 'inevitable' and would likely take place sooner than later

The Tesla CEO gave his comments at the Qatar Economic Forum, where he was quizzed on his "super bad feeling" about the economy and what he thought of the claims made by Biden administration officials that a US recession is "not inevitable."

The company highlighted a cumulative 48% probability that a US recession would happen over the next two years. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist, Mike Wilson, said the firm's economists have put the chance of a recession over the next year at 35%, up from 20%.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden stressed in an interview last week that a recession is still avoidable, and urged Americans to stay confident.

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😬 Former US President Donald Trump laid into Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in a Wednesday social media post that dubbed the Texan a ‘Republican in Name Only’ (RINO) for his role in bipartisan draft negotiations that brought about the framework for S.1738, the ‘Safer Communities Act.’

📌 The proposed legislation received support from 14 GOP senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). A final vote is scheduled for Thursday.

💬 “The deal on ‘Gun Control’ currently being structured and pushed in the Senate by the Radical Left Democrats, with the help of Mitch McConnell, RINO Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and others, will go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY. Republicans, be careful what you wish for!!!” the US president said in a June 22 post to Truth Social.

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📹 Russia's MoD has published footage showing the operation of Grad MLRS and Giacint-B howitzers.

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⚡️ The United States has detected 156 cases of monkeypox so far, with the highest incidence of infections reported in the states of New York and California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

📌 "Total confirmed monkeypox/orthopoxvirus cases: 156," the CDC said in a statement released on its official website on Wednesday.

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