🌲🔥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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😡  Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday criticized incumbent President Joe Biden's administration for lecturing other countries on their democracies while the rule of law is collapsing and innocent people are suffering in the United States.

🗯 "We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We've never had anything like what's going on right now. Our country's been knocked to its knees, humiliated before the world. Yet we presume to lecture other people and other countries on their democracies, all while the streets are flowing with the blood of innocent crime victims as we lecture others. We will not have a country left if this growing barbarism is not quickly reversed and stopped," Trump told an election rally in the US city of Las Vegas.

▪️ Trump added that the current administration is "weak on crime policies," citing soaring homicide records across the US, carjacking and robbery, organized crime, a "warzone" in Chicago, and the shooting on the Fourth of July.

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🤔 Democratic governors are worried that time is running out for President Joe Biden and his team to reverse their diminishing approval ratings ahead of the November midterm election, according to Politico.

▪️ The news outlet referred to the governors’ “general and growing dissatisfaction with the White House’s response” to their previous calls for “clear demonstration of new actions” from the Biden administration in the run-up to the midterms.

🗯 “Underlying it all is a concern that Biden and his team are not just out of fresh ideas, but increasingly out of time to turn around their flagging poll numbers” before the November events, Politico reported.

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⚡️🇱🇰 Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa reportedly flees as protesters surround his residence, defense sources said to AFP News Agency.

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📹 A funeral cortege with the body of former Prime Minister Abe arrives at his home in Tokyo. A farewell to the politician will take place on July 11 at a Buddhist temple in the capital of Japan; the funeral will take place on the 12th, a source told Sputnik.

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😏 The White House Press Office is making efforts to defend Joe Biden after he was compared to the foolish character Ron Burgundy from the 2004 comedy 'Anchorman.'

▪️ GOP strategist Greg Price mocked Biden on Twitter Friday after yet another gaffe, in which the president mistakenly read out “Repeat the line” from the teleprompter when announcing his executive order on abortion, women’s health and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

▪️ Posting the clip on social media, Price compared it to Will Farrell's Ron Burgundy being unable to deviate from the noscript on his teleprompter despite grammatical mistakes and obvious errors. 

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❗️Sri Lanka's Prime Minister has called an emergency meeting of party leaders in response to mass protests, the Prime Minister's Office reports

⚡️ Group of lawmakers urges Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa to step down, reports say

⚡️ The Russian MoD's latest statements on the Ukraine crisis:

▪️ Over 75 Ukrainian troops and about 30 pieces of equipment have been destroyed in Nikolaev region.

▪️ The Tornado battalion has been hit by a high-precision missile strike in Dnipropetrovsk region; more than 40 of the militants have been killed.

▪️ More than 30% of Ukrainian military personnel have been eliminated in a strike on positions in the Soledar area; most of the artillery units has been disabled.

▪️ Two points of deployment of foreign mercenaries in Kharkov region have been hit.

▪️ Five ammunition depots have been destroyed, as well as a fuel storage for military equipment

▪️ Two Ukrainian Su-25s have been shot down.

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❗️ Chief of opposition SJB party refuses to participate in talks with Sri Lankan PM

❗️ Sri Lankan party leaders urge president Rajapaksa to resign amid mass protests