🔻On Friday, the Indiana House passed a bill that would ban nearly all abortions in the state, sending the legislation back to the state Senate.

If approved as is, Indiana lawmakers will become the first in the nation to pass new legislation restricting access to abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June removing its protected status as a constitutional right. The measure then would go to Gov. Eric Holcomb, who has not indicated whether he would sign it.

Republican Wendy McNamara of Evansville, who sponsored the bill, said the legislation “reflects an understanding that this is one of the most difficult and contentious issues of our lifetime.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥Beyoncé drove her fans crazy with a semi-nude appearance in 'clickbait' of "Break my soul."

In the last few hours, Beyoncé has positioned herself among the main trends on social networks by posting a new video on YouTube with which she deceived more than one person.

The singer appeared in the first seconds of the video, showing her spectacular figure in a costume similar to a very revealing swimsuit.

At 40 years old, Beyoncé has reasserted herself as one of the world's great entertainers.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📈U.S. job growth unexpectedly accelerated in July, lifting employment above its pre-pandemic level and pouring cold water on fears that the economy was in recession.

The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday also showed employers continuing to raise wages at a strong clip and generally maintaining longer hours for workers. The sustained labor market strength could give the Federal Reserve the latitude to keep aggressively hiking interest rates.

Data for June was revised higher to show 398,000 jobs created instead of the previously reported 372,000. July marked the 19th month of payroll expansion and blew away economists' expectations for a gain of only 250,000 jobs.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😢The Brooklyn McDonald’s worker shot at point-blank range in a flap over cold French fries has died, police said Friday. Matthew Webb, 23, brain-dead following the Monday night shooting, had been on life support at Brookdale University Hospital.

The suspect, Michael Morgan, 20, accused of shooting the fast-food worker in the face because he was angry about how the restaurant handled his mother’s fry order, is expected to be charged with murder.

“The people are anticipating homicide charges in this case, given the victim is currently on life support,” Assistant District Attorney Luis Paternina said at Morgan’s Thursday arraignment. “So, essentially, the victim’s family is waiting to make a difficult decision about taking the victim off life support.”

The attack “has been deemed a homicide,” the force said early Friday, stressing that “the investigation remains ongoing.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📲Elon Musk accused Twitter of fraud in a countersuit over his aborted $44 billion deal for the social media company, which he claimed held back necessary information and misinformed his team about the actual size of its user base.

The billionaire and Tesla CEO countersuit alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract, and violation of a securities law in Texas, where Musk lives.

Musk offered to buy Twitter earlier this year, then tried to back out of the deal by claiming the social platform was infested with more significant numbers of "spam bots" and fake accounts than Twitter had disclosed.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

◾️The Pentagon rejected a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in what the mayor has called a “growing humanitarian crisis” prompted by thousands of migrants being bused to the city from two southern states.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to provide Guard personnel and the use of the D.C. Armory to assist with the reception of migrants into the city, according to U.S. defense officials. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday that the district might send an amended, “more specific” request, adding that she believes this is the first time a D.C. request for National Guard has been denied.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet made public, said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s food and shelter program has provided funding for the problem and has indicated those funds are sufficient at this point.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😳About 1,000 people cannot leave Death Valley National Park after severe flooding hit the park, shutting down all roads into and out of it.

The National Park Service said in a statement that it would take four to six hours to open a road on Highway 190 toward the east of the park to allow people to exit. There are about 500 visitors and 500 staff unable to leave the park as a result, according to NPS, though no injuries have been reported.

Flood waters pushed garbage bins into parked cars, causing them to crash into one another. Around 60 cars are buried in several feet of debris at The Inn at Death Valley. Furnace Creek received at least 1.7 inches of rain, nearly an entire year's worth of rain in one morning. More rain is expected later in the week.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📌 What’s going on in Gaza?

▪️ The Israeli military launched airstrikes on Gaza against Islamic Jihad targets Friday evening, killing one of the group's commanders.

▪️ Local health officials in Gaza said at least nine others had been killed in the strikes — including a 5-year-old child — and over 50 wounded.

▪️ Tensions have escalated over the past four days following the arrest in the West Bank of senior Islamic Jihad official Bassem Saadi. Since then, the group has warned Israel it intends to act against it.

▪️ The Israeli military says it nabbed 20 suspects overnight in arrest raids across the West Bank, including 19 Palestinians affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😮 Former CNN anchor Felicia Taylor has been arrested in Palm Beach over an alleged hit-and-run.

▪️ The retired anchor-correspondent who worked for CNN International’s “World Business Today“ was arrested on July 28 after she allegedly hit another car while driving her white Mercedes, causing injury to the other driver, then leaving the scene, Palm Beach Police said. She denies the charges.

▪️ According to the incident report, Taylor, 57, struck the rear bumper of a black Ford, driven by a 24-year-old man, which had stopped in traffic in front of her Mercedes.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚠️ WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

📹 In a dramatic surveillance video, the owner of a local smoke shop in Las Vegas appears to defend himself with a knife against two would-be thieves – identified only as juveniles – after one of them jumped over the counter.

👮‍♂️ Police have arrested the suspects, who are seen apparently trying to rob the store. The stabbed person was taken to hospital.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

👮‍♂️ Everett police are asking the public for help to identify a man accused of using a counterfeit $100 bill at a child’s lemonade stand, and walking away with $85 and lemonade.

▪️ According to the Everett Police Department, 11-year-old Jeremy spent his allowance to set up a lemonade stand on Beverly Boulevard.

💸 Police say a man approached Jeremy and offered him $100 for a drink, and he asked for exact change.
Jeremy used his allowance money to give the man $85 in change.

😐 When the man left, Jeremy went to a local gas station where he learned the $100 bill was fake and he was out all of his allowance money.

❤️ However, this sad story has a happy ending.

😌 When a neighbor of the family found out what had happened to Jeremy, she helped organize a GoFundMe account for him that has so far raised more than $1,800.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️ Beijing appreciates Russia's statement of support for the One China principle and opposition to actions violating China's sovereignty - foreign minister

😬 U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is being accused of hypocrisy after she condemned Russia for WNBA player Brittney Griner’s prison sentence. The Phoenix Mercury player was sentenced to nine years in prison for admitting to having accidentally packed vape cartridges, allegedly used for pain management, in her luggage. Griner was also ordered to pay a one million ruble ($16,600) fine.

▪️ While U.S. President Joe Biden—along with several U.S. diplomats and government officials—called the ruling “unacceptable” and demanded Russia release Griner, Harris also condemned the conviction via Twitter, labeling the imprisonment of Griner as “wrongful.”

▪️ Social media users were quick to jump on the V.P. for her hypocrisy regarding the sentencing of Griner. During her tenure as both San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general, Harris oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions, and prosecutors under her supervision convicted people on charges related to the substance at a higher rate than her predecessor.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📊 How Americans feel about the prospect of a third major political party in the U.S.

▪️ A recent Economist/YouGov poll reveals that Americans generally have positive views of the value a third major party would add to the US political system. Nearly half of Americans say they'd be willing to vote for a third party or independent candidate, although only around one-third report having done so in the past.

▪️ When asked how they feel about a third political party in the US, more Americans say a third party is necessary (39%) than say the Democratic and Republican Parties are enough to represent Americans (30%). The rest (31%) are unsure.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😏 Donald Trump’s lawyers have argued the statute of limitations shouldn’t apply to the lawsuit he filed against political rival Hillary Clinton because the “immense and unrelenting demands” of the job prevented him from doing so sooner.

▪️ The former president was simply too busy during his single term in office to discover the details of the alleged plot, which he claims involved a vast effort to falsely accuse him and his 2016 campaign of colluding with Russia and swamp him with costly investigations, his lawyers wrote in a filing Thursday night in a federal court in Florida.

▪️ Trump “was preoccupied with carrying out his eminently important presidential duties and was therefore impeded from effectively asserting his rights,” his lawyers said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Russian servicemen have delivered another batch of humanitarian aid and medicines to civilians in liberated settlements in the Kharkov region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇯🇵 Bells have tolled in Hiroshima, Japan as the city marked the 77th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing.

🌎 United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined the thousands of people packed into Peace Park in the center of the city to mark the anniversary of the bombing, which killed some 140,000. This is only the second time a UN secretary-general has taken part in the annual ceremony.

🗯 "Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety - only death and destruction," Mr. Guterres said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🥴 A French scientist has apologized for a joke he posted on Twitter, in which he claimed a photo of a chorizo was that of a star.

▪️ Etienne Klein, who is the research director of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, posted a photo last week that he claimed was of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

▪️ The telescope sent back its first full-color image showing the deepest view of the universe ever seen last month, after reaching its destination almost one million miles from Earth earlier this year.

▪️ Klein pointed to the level of detail in the image he posted and said that a “new world” was being uncovered.

▪️ But he commented on his post about an hour later to reveal the joke, saying that modern cosmology states that no object from “Spanish charcuterie” exists outside of Earth.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 🇮🇳 The United States is set to take part in a joint military exercise with India less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the South Asian country's disputed border with China.

▪️ The military drills will be held in mid-October at an altitude of 10,000 feet in Auli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand and will focus on high-altitude warfare training, according to a senior Indian Army officer with knowledge of the matter.

▪️ Auli is about 95 kilometers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an inhospitable piece of land where the disputed border between India and China is roughly demarcated.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Israeli defense minister has ordered to continue operation against Islamic Jihad

🇦🇫 Afghan authorities have not found a body at the site of a US missile attack on al-Qaeda leader

Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul - Taliban official
Earlier, the Taliban said they had no information about the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri.

* The Taliban is an organization sanctioned by the United Nations for terrorist activities.
* Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.