⚡️ 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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😡  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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤔 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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

Subscribe to @sputniknewsindia

📹 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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😏 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. 

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️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.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ 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

👀 "Is this what she's gonna teach our children?" People can't believe that an MP who gave protesters the middle finger has been promoted to education minister.

The footage shows Andrea Jenkyns making the gesture to protesters while entering Downing Street just a day before she was given the role of education minister.

🗣 The video went viral, with many netizens criticizing the gesture of the Conservative MP: “Can’t wait for you to teach our children good manners”. Others noticed that, “Ministers aren’t expected to be perfect. But is it really too much to ask that they don’t treat the public like this?”

But the "magic" finger gesture doesn't seem to be limited to the Tories. A couple of months earlier LABOUR candidate Iman Less posted a picture of herself making an obscene gesture in front of a war memorial.

❗️ Defence Secretary Ben Wallace says won't be running for PM after Johnson steps down

❗️ Sri Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe agrees to resign, reports suggest

"412 little lives": A Spanish war correspondent reveals how many have been killed in Donbass with weapons bought with "European taxpayer's money".

"I am only human": Andrea Jenkyns says she 'flipped off' the crowd in response to insults.

As the newly-appointed UK education minister faced a backlash, she tweeted that she should have shown more composure, but did not apologize directly for the incident.