🗣 The UN believes journalists should be allowed to work freely in all countries, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq told Sputnik, after Canada slapped sanctions on dozens of Russian media outlets and TV personalities.

❗️ UK ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announces bid to succeed Boris Johnson

🐴 A young foal has wandered away from the herd and lost sight of his mother.
Watch these good guys help it get back.

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❗️ Russia vetoes UN resolution extending cross-border aid to Syria

❗️ Biden to announce new $400mln military aid package for Ukraine on Friday - Pentagon

📹🇨🇳 Beijing has said that it conducted joint combat exercises and drills around Taiwan recently amid a US senator's visit to the island.

The drills were carried out in response to "provocation" by the US and Taiwan, according to the Chinese Army statement.

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🗣 "End of quote. Repeat the line": US President Joe Biden mistakenly read out the teleprompter's "Repeat the line" when announcing his executive order on abortion, women's health and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

❗️ The US, the UK, and France vetoed a Russian UN Security Council resolution to extend the mechanism that allows cross-border aid deliveries into northwest Syria through Turkey.

A senior US defense rep speaks on the situation in Ukraine:

🔸 US plans to supply Ukrainians with military equipment for months or years ahead

🔸 US, allies discuss providing Ukraine with new coastal defense system

🔸 US denies reports Ukrainians are using HIMARS to hit targets outside the country

🔸 New Ukraine military aid includes four HIMARS units, bringing total to 12

🔸 US to deliver NASAMS missile systems to Ukraine within several months

Good News Friday: Here is a little recap of nice things from this week

🔸 A baby goat from Pakistan has ears long enough to wrap them around its neck several times. The goat's name is Simba and his ears have already grown to 54cm.

🔸 The dog wedding took place in Runcorn, UK, attended by more than 90 dogs and their owners. The happy couple is two Chihuahuas.

🔸 In NYC, Long Island a shark attacked a lifeguard, but everything went well: the lifeguard managed to push the animal away with his bare hands.

🔸 In the UK, British engineers will construct a ground-based system that would warn humans of potentially harmful space weather phenomena.

🔸 Chinese engineers are working hard to create "forest" residential complexes that would not inflict swarms of mosquitoes to devour locals. The complex is dubbed the Qiyi City Forest Garden.

🔸 Metallica's classic hit 'Master of Puppets' returned to glory, topping the iTunes rock chart and scoring 29th overall on iTunes due to the 'Stranger Things' series.

▪️🚨Texas teen fatally shoots friend Princess Omobogie during Livestream display of guns. The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office said that at around 10:30 p.m. there was a 911 call about a shooting in the southeastern part of the county, outside Pflugerville.

The teenager, who has not been identified, had been holding two handguns while being filmed for a Livestream broadcast at an apartment complex.

After Omobodie's death, her friend was taken into custody and charged with manslaughter. She’s currently being held at the Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center.

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📚🔻The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said Thursday that some 84 million children and young people will continue to be out of school by 2030 if immediate measures are not taken to avoid it.

"There is a funding crisis in which 40 percent of low- and middle-income countries reduced their spending on education during the pandemic; the average reduction was 13.5 percent, but budgets have not returned to their 2019 levels," the official specified.

With data from 90 percent of its member states, the UN agency projected an increase in the percentage of students with basic reading skills at the end of elementary school, which would rise from 51 percent in 2015 to 67 percent in 2030, the agency indicated.

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⚡️Elon Musk Terminates $44 Bln Twitter Deal

✳️The New Orleans City Council passed a resolution unanimously Thursday that would prevent city entities from enforcing Louisiana's abortion trigger laws. This comes after a judge blocked the trigger laws in place in Louisiana after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“People are afraid. Ultimately this impacts someone's health as a whole because OBGYNs in Louisiana are reluctant to practice in a state that may be prosecuted and sentence doctors to hard labor for providing reproductive care to their patients," said City Council President Helena Moreno. "Here in the city of New Orleans, we have real public safety issues.”

Louisiana is one of 13 states with a "trigger law" that immediately ended a woman's right to abortion except for ectopic pregnancies and medically futile pregnancies.

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🌲🔥Yosemite National Park, California, was closed Friday as a wildfire burning through dense forest became the latest in recent years to threaten the world’s largest trees.

A team was sent to the Mariposa Grove to cover some of the massive trunks in fire-resistant foil to protect them as the blaze burned out of control, said Nancy Phillipe, a Yosemite fire information spokesperson.

The cause of the fire is under investigation and the rest of the park remained open as nearly 300 firefighters tried to control the flames with the help of two water-dropping helicopters and an air tanker dumping flame retardant, Phillipe said.

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🌊🏊‍♀️Lifeguard shortage reduces pool hours and services across the United States. A third of the country's 300,000 public pools will have to cut back hours or close altogether this summer if they can’t find staff, the American Lifeguard Association warned.

"This is what we consider a critical lifeguard shortage in America," Wyatt Werneth, spokesperson for the American Lifeguard Association, told Yahoo Finance Media "And where this time every year we normally have a full complement of lifeguards, we're not seeing it due to the pandemic, the cancellation of the J-1 work visa, ... as well as the competitive pay rates."

The impact is less severe at popular beaches in Florida and California where lifeguards tend to work year-round. Instead, the primary shortage has been seen at municipal pools, particularly in large U.S. cities.

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🙈🎶The Weeknd tour stop in Toronto was postponed due to a phone and Internet outage causing major issues north of the border.

Rogers Communications, the largest telecommunications company in Canada, has suffered a massive service outage that has knocked out internet access, mobile service, and landlines across the country. Services went offline early on July 8, although Rogers didn't acknowledge the issue until around 9 am.

Fans of The Weeknd expressed shock and disappointment Friday as they arrived at the Rogers Centre to learn the highly anticipated start of the Toronto singer's world tour had been suspended thanks to the Rogers network outage.

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◾️Arizona's governor has signed a law restricting how the public can video police at a time when there's growing pressure across the U.S. for greater law enforcement transparency.

There needs to be a law that protects officers from people who "either have a very poor judgment or sinister motives," said Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, the bill's sponsor.

Civil rights and media groups opposed the measure that Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed Thursday. The law makes it illegal in Arizona to knowingly video police officers 8 feet (2.5 meters) or closer without an officer's permission.

Someone on private property with the owner's consent can also be ordered to stop recording if a police officer finds they are interfering or the area is not safe. The penalty is a misdemeanor that would likely incur a fine without jail time.

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😳 Three women have been arrested and charged with robbery and criminal mischief after they were filmed destroying a New York City restaurant and attacking workers in a dispute over payment for extra sauce.

▪️ “They wanted extra sauce for the fries, and when we explained that it costs $1.75, they got upset. And that’s where it all started,” chef Rafael Nuñez of Bel Fries on the Lower East Side of Manhattan said.

▪️ The employees looked on as the three women trashed the restaurant, as shown in the now-viral video.

▪️ One woman was seen hurling a can at the employees while the others climbed over the counter and launched bottles of sauce.

▪️ Two of the women were also seen twerking on the counter as they laughed and applauded their destruction.

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⚡️ A woman traveling on a Florida highway captured video of the moment lightning struck her husband's truck, damaging the vehicle and a sheriff's deputy's vehicle traveling next to it.

▪️ Michelle Whalen was traveling in a car behind her husband's truck on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area and was taking a video of the rainstorm when she captured the moment a bolt of lightning struck the truck being driven by her husband, Edward Whalen.

▪️ Miceli and the Whalen family were not injured, but their vehicles were severely damaged.

🗯 "It was pretty wild. After everything was done, my son said we needed to check ourselves in a couple days for super powers," Brian Whalen said.

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🗣 The White House was pressed to respond after a group of protesters assembled outside a restaurant where Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was dining Wednesday evening.

🗯 "Does the president think it’s appropriate for abortion rights protesters to intimidate Supreme Court justices when they’re out to eat, like Brett Kavanaugh, who had to sneak out of a steakhouse last night?", one of the journalists asked the WH press sec.

😬 Jean-Pierre said the White House and President Biden "have been pretty clear" that the administration condemns "any intimidation of judges" and pointed to the president signing the Supreme Court Police Parity Act expanding the justices’ security.

🥴 The White House said it supports peaceful protests despite Kavanaugh having to escape protesters after finishing his dinner.

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