🇮🇱 Israeli spyware firm chief steps down amid NSO restructuring

NSO Group, the Israeli offensive cyber firm known for its infamous Pegasus spyware, is laying off about 100 workers and replacing its CEO, a company spokesperson confirmed on Sunday. The company has been connected to a number of scandals resulting from alleged misuse by customers of its flagship Pegasus phone surveillance software.

The company has also been hurt by an Israeli decision late last year to tighten its supervision of cyber exports. That decision, made in the wake of criticism that Israel's oversight of the digital surveillance industry was too lax, has reduced the number of countries that can purchase Israeli cyber software from over 100 to 37. They also faces lawsuits from Apple and Facebook accusing the Israeli firm of breaking into their products.

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🧑‍🏫 Student loan payment pause: Biden to make decision this week

US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Sunday that Americans can expect a decision from the Biden administration on student loans in the "next week or so" as a pause on federal student loan payments is set to expire on Aug. 31.

With some 10 days to go, Americans have been left guessing whether President Joe Biden will extend the current moratorium or, perhaps, forgive some of their debt. Democratic lawmakers and advocates have been urging Biden to broadly cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower.

The Education Department has already made strides to forgive student loan debt, which is estimated to be at $1.7 trillion spread across 45 million Americans.

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🚨 Officers caught on video pummeling a shoeless man in Arkansas' Crawford County

Newly surfaced graphic video depicts two Crawford County deputies and a Mulberry Police officer beating a man on the ground and slamming his head into the cement in Arkansas.

The Crawford County Sheriff’s Department issued a Sunday statement, announcing that the two deputies involved in the incident have been suspended pending an investigation.

Special Agents of the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division are investigating the weekend incident.

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🚙 DoorDash won’t deliver Walmart’s groceries starting next month

The company is calling off its partnership with Walmart, which had the service delivering groceries and other goods from the retail chain to customers for over four years.

The two companies first teamed up in 2018 when Walmart started testing having groceries ordered through its site delivered by DoorDash. It went live in Atlanta, Georgia, to start, but has since expanded to several other states.

Walmart has been busy building out its own delivery service platform, Spark, which hands off grocery deliveries to its own database of gig workers, similar to the way Lyft and Uber operate.

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🛻 Ford to appeal $1.7 billion verdict in Georgia truck crash

The company plans to appeal a $1.7 billion verdict against the automaker after a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, a company representative said Sunday.

Jurors in Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta, returned the verdict late last week in the yearslong civil case involving what the plaintiffs’ lawyers called dangerously defective roofs on Ford pickup trucks, lawyer James Butler Jr. said Sunday.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs had submitted evidence of nearly 80 similar rollover wrecks that involved truck roofs being crushed that injured or killed motorists, Butler’s law firm, Butler Prather LLP, said in a statement.

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🗣 Hundreds of Google workers signed a petition demanding it stop collecting abortion search data from people

The Alphabet Workers' Union — a union for employees at Google's parent company Alphabet — circulated a petition that garnered over 650 signatures, the union said in a Twitter.

One of the petition's demand is that Google stop collecting data from users searching for abortion information. The AWU cited the case of a 17 year-old and her mother who were accused in June of obtaining an illegal abortion for the teenager, and whose Facebook data was given to law enforcement.

It also said Google must work to get rid of ads for "misleading 'pregnancy crisis centers." Bloomberg reported this week Google Maps frequently directs users searching for abortion clinics to pregnancy crisis centers instead.

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Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters has been added to the Ukrainian online blacklist Myrotvorets, "for an infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

Waters has gone on record as saying that the change of power in Ukraine in 2014 was effected by the US State Department - and under secretary of state, Victoria Nuland personally - which provoked Russia to retaliate. He also added that Biden is guilty of a serious crime by inciting a war in Ukraine

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⚡️ Erdogan plans to hold phone talks with Putin this week, situation at Zaporozhye NPP and Ukrainian crisis expected to be on agenda, source told Sputnik

Once Russia's special operation in Ukraine began, some western states called for Russia to be expelled from the World Trade Organization (WTO), which Russia joined 10 years ago.

However, Sergio Rossi, professor of macroeconomics and monetary economics at Switzerland's University of Fribourg, feels that Russia's exclusion from the WTO would have a negative effect not only on Russia, but also on other members of the group.

CHECK OUT: Is it possible to boot Russia out of the WTO, and what pitfalls would such a move involve?

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⚡️ Gas prices in Europe have exceeded $2,750 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time since the beginning of March, growing by 8% - ICE

📹 Russia's MoD has published footage showing the combat operations of Ka-52 helicopters during the special operation in Ukraine

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⚡️ Russia's FSB has detained a Daesh* suicide bomber who had been plotting a terrorist attack against "one of India's ruling circles".

*terrorist organization banned in Russia

📹 Ukrainian forces shell area near Auchan store in Donetsk, Sputnik correspondent says

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🚂 German newspaper Die Welt cited a draft Bill which is planning to give cargo trains carrying coal, oil and gas right of way over passenger trains. The measure is being taken by German authorities because of the energy crisis, spreading throughout Europe.

Also in July, as part of the fight against the energy crisis and plans to abandon Russian gas, the German government passed a law authorizing coal-fired power plants, which had been mothballed for reasons of climate protection, to be brought back into use

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⚡️ Gas futures in Europe top $3,000 per 1,000 cubic meters first time since March - ICE

📹 Children at a Canadian school have been offered protein bars made from ground insects. Some of them have already tried crickets.

😄 Mom, don’t forget to put some flies in my lunchbox!

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⚡️ US wants to accuse China of a unilateral attempt to change the status quo regarding Taiwan and impose blocking sanctions against Beijing, Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev says

⚡️ Putin, Uzbek president discuss preparation to SCO summit in September, Kremlin says

⚡️ There is reason to believe that US will default on foreign debt in the foreseeable future, Patrushev says

Watch: Russia's Msta-S Howitzers performing fire missions to destroy Ukrainian armored vehicles and fortified positions

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▪️ The US is preparing to deploy strategic forces near the Korean peninsula if the DPRK conducts another test of atomic weapons, Patrushev says;

▪️ The US policy is as damaging to Asia as it is to Europe since members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are now being forced to buy wheat at prices several times higher than previously

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