🎥 HBO says 'Game of Thrones' prequel 'House of the Dragon' most watched premiere in its history

👉READ MORE

🌋The Ebeko Volcano, located on the Kuril Islands in Russia, has spewed a powerful column of ash into the air

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💬Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters has criticized Western sanctions against Russian culture and sports:

"It's complete idiocy. And it just shows how these people's brains work. What good do you get from banning concerts that play Tchaikovsky's music or telling people they can't read Dostoyevsky? It's obviously crazy," Waters said.

He added that a similar situation has developed in sports, and wondered why the West does not introduce sanctions against, for example, Israel or the US.

"Didn't you notice that in 2003 they invaded Iraq and killed, we don't know, maybe around a million people?" the artist asked.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Amazon has released a new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The series will premiere on September 2, 2022

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 A high-speed train slammed into a car in North Miami, while those inside the vehicle successfully escaped.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇫🇮 Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has had to apologize yet again, this time for a topless photo of guests at her official residence

A new video has started circulating on the Internet showing two half-naked women covering their bare breasts with a sign reading "Finland" and kissing next to an official background at the prime minister’s residence.

Marin admitted "the picture is not appropriate" and apologized.

"We had sauna, swam and spent time together. That kind of a picture should not have been taken but otherwise, nothing extraordinary happened at the get-together," Sanna Marin said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 US to announce $3bln arms package for Ukraine to mark country's independence day - report

💬 Zelensky said Ukraine intends to act "by any means" to establish control over Crimea and that Kiev will decide "on its own, without consulting with any other state"

🤨🍔 Bizarre marketing trick: McDonald's wants to bring the scent of the Big Mac into Austrians' bathrooms. A special Big Mac shower gel has been unveiled.

Of course, it is not suitable for consumption, as one might suspect, but who knows what's next in Austria, where vegan food is trending?

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇿🇦🦏 Cute news: a baby white rhino was born in a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa and was captured on video taking its first steps. There are about 18,000 of these animals living in protected areas and private game reserves

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤔 Is such a fine enough for what Paul Pelosi did?

🇮🇹 Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italian party Lega Nord, said that Western sanctions imposed against Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine are ineffective and helping the Russian economy.

💬 "We must look at the numbers regarding sanctions against Russia... For the first time in history, the one who is under sanctions is benefiting," Salvini told a forum for government and political leaders in the Italian city of Rimini.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

“Waiting for the Russians”: The words stuck onto the body of a journalist from Mariupol by the Ukrainian security service before he was tied to a pole with a bag over his head.

🔻Nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a new poll conducted by NBC News. The poll, which was released on Sunday, showed that only 21 percent of voters think the nation is headed in the right direction, while 74 percent think the opposite.

Additionally, 58 percent of voters believe America's best days are behind it, while another 68 percent think the nation is currently in an economic recession.

About a third of the respondents said they believe the state of the nation will worsen over the next five years, the poll revealed. Just two percentage points more, or 36 percent, say they think things will get better in that same time period, and 21 percent said they think things will stay the same.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💵🎓President Joe Biden is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday whether to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt as the White House nears a self-imposed deadline for a final call.

The president has said he would decide by Aug. 31. Biden faces increasing pressure from progressive Democrats to cancel an even larger share of debt for Americans who took federal loans to pay for college. But some Democratic economists, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, worry about the risk of debt cancelation exacerbating 40-year-high inflation.

More than 43 million people have federal student loan debt in the U.S., and the average borrower has about $37,000, according to data compiled by the Education Data Initiative. The outstanding federal loan balance is about $1.6 trillion.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚖️A former police officer in Louisville, Kentucky, has begged guilty to a federal conspiracy charge concerning the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman whose shooting death during a police raid prompted mass protests for racial justice across the United States.

Kelly Goodlett pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy on Tuesday in a federal court in Louisville, the New York Times first reported, becoming the first officer to be held criminally responsible for the raid.

Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was asleep with her boyfriend on March 13, 2020, when police conducted a no-knock raid and burst into her apartment. Taylor’s boyfriend fired once at what he said he believed were intruders. Three police officers responded with 32 shots, six of which struck Taylor, killing her.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥WATCH: Paul Pelosi's DUI Dashcam Video Released Hours After Guilty Plea.