🇺🇸 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?

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🇿🇦🦏 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

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🤔 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.

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“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.

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💵🎓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.

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⚖️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.

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

🔶The record drought in America's Southwest can be seen from 35,000 kilometers above Earth. Recently released surveillance from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) showed areas where the historic "mega-drought" has left gigantic "bathtub rings" on the country's largest reservoirs and vast, parched areas which now can be seen from outer space.

Federal officials announced new water cuts to states that rely on the Colorado River in a suite of emergency moves to reinforce reservoirs that have hit record-low levels due to climate change and decades of drought.

The graphic images underscore the dire threat to some 40 million Americans in seven western states that an anticipated water shortage will create and were released last week by NASA from its satellites that circumnavigate the globe from 35,000 kilometers high.

"NASA satellites have been monitoring waterways in the West for years and documenting how the region is drying up," Vox reported Friday.

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📊A vast majority of U.S. adults want to see gun laws made stricter and think gun violence is rising nationwide, according to a new poll that finds broad public support for various gun restrictions, including many that are supported by majorities of Republicans and gun owners.

The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll show that 71% of Americans say gun laws should be stricter, including about half of Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats, and a majority of those in gun-owning households.

The poll was conducted between July 28 and Aug. 1, after a string of deadly mass shootings — from a New York grocery store to a school in Texas and a July 4 parade in Illinois — and a 2020 spike in gun killings that have increased attention on the issue of gun violence.

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🦕Dinosaur tracks from around 113 million years ago have been revealed at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas due to severe drought conditions that dried up a river, the park said Monday in a statement.

"Most tracks that have recently been uncovered and discovered at different parts of the river in the park belong to Acrocanthosaurus. This was a dinosaur that would stand, as an adult, about 15 feet tall and (weigh) close to seven tons," park spokesperson Stephanie Salinas Garcia told CNN..

This summer's excessive drought has caused a river in the park to dry out completely in most spots, revealing the tracks -- the latest long-hidden secret recently exposed as bodies of water have dried up due to drought conditions across the globe.

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🔹While US unemployment remains low, it coincides with a significant drop in worker productivity. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Aug 9 that nonfarm business productivity fell 4.6 percent in the second quarter after losing even more — 7.4 percent — in the first quarter.

That happened as US employers added 528,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 percent, tying a 50-year low reached just before the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, has questioned those numbers, saying there is "a possibility that the current jobs numbers are too large." Whether true or not, the jobs report counts payrolls, not people working. People working two part-time jobs are counted twice, once for each job.

According to the BLS, more Americans now have two jobs, which could signify people are trying to cope with inflated prices for food and energy.

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LIVE UPDATES | Nuland refused to cooperate with Russia on US biolabs in Ukraine - Russian Lawmaker

❌ The US is continuing to cancel its historical figures. Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington has announced that it is renaming parts of the base named after American Civil War veteran George Wright (1803 to 1865), because he has been accused of cruelty towards Native Americans early in his career.

The base has said that Ft Wright Village and Ft Wright Oval will be renamed Lilac Village and Willow Loop respectively.

Wright received many awards throughout his career and life, and was promoted in 1844 for his performance in battle against the Seminole tribe in Florida. Some historians have described him as "a superior military officer and a product of his time"

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⚡️⚡️ Thailand's Constitutional Court reportedly tells Country's PM Prayut Chan-o-cha to step down

⚡️ Car bomb explosion kills head of Mikhaylovka in Zaporozhye Region, authorities say

📹 Russia's MoD has published footage of a combat operation undertaken by Mi-28 multi-purpose attack helicopter crews during the special military operation in Ukraine

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⚡️⚡️Shoigu: Slowdown of Moscow op in Ukraine's pace a conscious decision to minimize civilian casualties