💻 In a 243-187 vote on Thursday, the House passed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act to strengthen US science and technology innovation. The bill, a Biden administration priority, includes $52 billion in subsidies to encourage chip manufacturers to build out semiconductor fabrications plants, or “fabs,” in the US.

Outside of the chips subsidies, the bill provides the Commerce Department with $10 billion to award states and localities grants to build out “regional technology hubs” across the country. The hubs would serve as mini Silicon Valleys as a means of bringing jobs and economic growth to areas hard hit by globalization.

The National Science Foundation is also set to receive billions in additional funding for semiconductor manufacturing research and workforce development programs.

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🇺🇸White House Press-Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has accused Republicans of "using" illegal immigrants by sending them to big cities

“I said this before ... about Republicans using migrants as a political tool, and that is shameful and that is just wrong … There is a process in place for managing migrants at the border. This is not it,” she declared.

Earlier, the mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, requested that the National Guard be activated to help deal with the influx of migrants being moved there from Texas and Arizona.

💬Texas lost no time in rejecting Jean-Pierre’s remarks. "Washington DC finally understands what Texans have been dealing with every single day, as our communities are overrun and overwhelmed by thousands of illegal immigrants thanks to President Biden’s open border policies," Governor Greg Abbott's office said in a statement.

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❗️ Pelosi to travel to Asia with US congressmen on Friday, intends to visit Japan, Korea and Singapore; visit to Taiwan "under consideration" - NBC

🇺🇸The US defense contractor and his wife who were photographed in KGB uniforms have been charged in Texas with stealing the identity of two dead children

The couple have been living in the US for decades under false names and it’s still not clear why.

Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison, both in their sixties, took the names Bobby Edward Fort and Julie Lyn Montague - two children who died in Texas in 1987. Under these new identities, they remarried, and Primrose joined the US Coast Guard. After retiring, he became a defense contractor.

The couple were arrested last week. They are charged with appropriating personal data and using it in cases related to the jurisdiction of the US Department of Defense. Primrose faces up to 17 years in prison.

📷 Photos of Primrose and Morrison in Soviet KGB uniform have been used in the case, but the charges against them do not include espionage - the photos were taken as a joke, their lawyer insists.

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China' s top diplomat Wang Yi seems to be in an upbeat mood, waving at journalists at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ministerial summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. China is one of the founding members of the transregional bloc, has a lot of influence on its decision-making, and "Shanghai spirit" is the phrase which is often used to describe the organization's cultural diversity.

❗China began a two-day military exercise in the South China Sea off the coast of southern Guangdong province as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepares for her trip to Asia

⚡The West's military strategy to deal with Russian-Ukrainian conflict doesn't work - Hungary PM Orban

Lisichansk residents are asking why the Ukrainian Army shelled Orthodox churches:

"These non-Orthodox churches are still standing... all the Orthodox buildings were razed to the ground."

"We are one people - Slavs... Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians... One Heavenly Father - and they did this."

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🇺🇸Joe Biden's granddaughter to be married at the White House

❗️San Francisco declares state of emergency over the spread of monkeypox

Numerous cases of flooding in the US: Here downtown Las Vegas, Nevada is seen inundated by tonnes of water

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