‼️ JUST IN | Idaho Supreme Court allows state to implement near-total abortion ban

The Idaho Supreme Court will allow the state to enforce a near-total abortion ban while legal challenges are carried out in the court system, the bench ruled Friday.

Abortions will effectively be banned in Idaho; however, doctors will be allowed to argue in court if the procedures were performed in order to prevent the mother’s death, or in cases of rape or incest, with the doctor having been given a copy of a police report.

The ruling will take effect August 25.

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🚨 Author’s agent: Rushdie placed on ventilator, may lose eye after stabbing attack

Author Salman Rushdie, who has been attacked in New York, is on a ventilator, cannot speak and is likely to lose an eye, media reported.

On Friday, Rushdie was stabbed twice as he was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

“The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged," Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie told The New York Times, adding that the writer is on a ventilator and cannot speak.

🦠 Polio detected in NYC’s sewage

The virus that causes polio has been found in New York City’s wastewater in another sign that the disease, which hadn’t been seen in the US in a decade, is quietly spreading among unvaccinated people, health officials said Friday.

The presence of the poliovirus in the city’s wastewater suggests likely local circulation of the virus, health authorities from the city, New York state and the federal government said.

The authorities urged parents to get their children vaccinated against the potentially deadly disease.

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🚨 FBI, Trump & Mar-a-Lago: What Exactly is Going On?

The FBI claims to have taken 11 sets of classified files—including "TS/SCI" (Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information) documents—in their shocking raid of former US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate Monday. Items allegedly retrieved include:

🎞 Binders of photos
📄 Leather-bound box of documents
📃 One "potential" presidential record
📝 Single handwritten note A document containing "info re: President of France”

Trump responded by:
Calling out “sleazy” FBI officials who he suggested could have planted evidence

Denouncing allegations he’d mishandled nuclear weapons documents as “a hoax”
Fiercely condemning the raid, labeling it “unprecedented political weaponization of law enforcement” by “radical left Democrats”

The warrant gave the FBI the green light to search “storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”

Feds say they were looking for:

“Any physical documents with classifications markings” and surrounding boxes
“Information…. regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material”
"Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021."
Any evidence of the “knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records” or classified documents

As Federalist co-founder Sean Davis pointed out on Twitter, this means Attorney General Merrick Garland “demanded the seizure of literally any record Trump ever saw, read, or created over the entire 4-year term of his presidency.”

The warrant reveals the FBI is investigating Trump for three potential violations of the Espionage Act:

18 U.S. Code §2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation generally
18 U.S. Code § 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
18 U.S. Code § 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations

🕵️‍♂️ The ESPIONAGE ACT was created to silence anti-war voices in the run-up to WWI

- It was used to jail dissidents like Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to 10 years hard labor for speaking out against US involvement in the war
- US government use of the act spiked under President Obama, with prosecutions in recent years focusing on whistleblowers like Edward Snowden
- US prosecutors have invoked the Espionage Act in their effort to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after the Australian publisher revealed videos showing war crimes committed by US forces

🚨 Princess Parking Wanted

Doug Emhoff, the husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, recently turned heads at a Whole Foods Market in California after his motorcade blocked several handicapped parking spaces while he shopped.

The incident unfolded just outside the store’s Brentwood establishment, and lasted for about 20 minutes, according to reports. Photos have since shown the second husband casually strolling back to his SUV, as his Secret Service detail remains nearby.

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🏛 Minnesota’s Finstad sworn in as newest member of Congress

Minnesota Republican Brad Finstad was sworn in Friday as the newest member of the US House, giving the GOP one more seat, which means Democrats can’t afford to lose more than four votes on close issues like their flagship climate change and health care bill.

Finstad, a former state representative from New Ulm who served as state director for USDA Rural Development during the Trump administration, won a special election Tuesday to fill out the remaining months of the term of the late Republican US Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died of cancer in February.

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Anne Heche died on Friday at the age of 53 after a car crash on August 11.

The Los Angeles Police Department reportedly determined that Heche was under the influence of cocaine at the time of the accident.

According to media, the results of the actress' blood test also came back positive for fentanyl; however, they noted that fentanyl may have been administered to her at the hospital to help manage her pain after the accident

LIVE UPDATES |Donetsk shelled by Ukrainian troops, DPR mission to JCCC says

👼 Extreme childbirth: a woman gave birth during her hiking trip to Mount Elbrus, at a height of 4,000 meters.

The woman didn't know she would become a mother for the third time, as doctors had diagnosed her with symptoms similar to pregnancy.

Tourists called the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but the baby boy was born before the arrival of rescuers - the birth of the child was assisted by a man who was nearby. Both the baby and mother are doing well now

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⚡️ Two cargo ships with Ukrainian agricultural products have left the port of Chernomorsk, Turkish Defense Ministry says

📹 The Russian MoD has shown footage of Ka-52 helicopters destroying Ukrainian strongholds and equipment

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⚡️ Ukraine is in default, Fitch and S&P rating agencies say

🗣 Poland’s PM said on Friday that "a huge amount of chemical waste" had been dumped into a river, causing environmental damage so severe that the river would take years to recover. Tons of fish have died and been washed up on the banks of the Oder River over the past two weeks

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LIVE | Tank Biathlon Competition kicks off in Moscow region

⚡️ Taliban* fighters fire into air to disperse women's protest in Kabul, they also injure some of them and arrest a number of activists and journalists, Afghan Peace Watch journalist reported

* The Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities

According to the Telegraph, the Aldi supermarket in London imposed a restriction on the purchase of bottled water amid the announcement of a drought: the store hung signs saying that you can buy only five individual bottles and three multi-packs per person

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