Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella's National Rally party updates record in terms of voter support two days before legislative elections in France

37% are ready to vote for the National Rally, followed by the left-wing coalition, which 28% are ready to support, the presidential coalition wins 20%.

*Data from the Echos and Radio Classique polls.

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Democratic Party needs to find replacement for Biden ASAP – Wall Street analyst

"Debate night was a fiasco for Team Biden and for the conspirators in media and elsewhere who have ceaselessly sold Biden disasters on many fronts as 'successes'," Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik, commenting on the first Trump-Biden debate in Atlanta.

Having just several months left before Election Day, the Democratic leadership now "have to push Biden and Harris both out and try to find a more credible team to fight the already well-funded and fiercely energized Trump juggernaut," according to the pundit.

"One theoretical approach might be to field an all-female historic ticket, seeking to exploit perceived weaknesses for Republicans over stances on abortion and gender insensitivity. Here, a Michelle Obama ticket with, perhaps, Hillary Clinton might gel," he presumed.

Team Biden has failed on all fronts, Ortel said: "Whether it is the demolished pier in Gaza, the wreckage across the Middle East and Afghanistan, the horrific meat grinder in Ukraine, or the lawlessness and failures in Democrat run states and cities, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stand revealed as incompetent losers."

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Russian serviceman shot down an enemy kamikaze drone with a shotgun

He shot the drone with an N5 shotgun blast, after which the drone fell and exploded afterwards.

Apparently, he used a device [in his left hand] that analyzes the frequencies that enemy operators send to their drones.

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🇮🇹🐶At yesterday's meeting of the mayor's office, the mayor of the Italian city of Terni, Stefano Bandecchi, suddenly stopped answering questions from representatives of the Brothers of Italy party, barked at one of the deputies and left the room.

Before leaving, he handed one of his colleagues a piece of paper on which, according to media reports, he wrote: "Tell her 'screw you' on my behalf.

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Joe's DOs and DONTs for the debates

A sarcastic video about Biden's final preparations for the presidential debate with Trump has gone viral on social media.

According to the video, key points for Joe to remember are:

▪️ Russia [is] bad. Russia is really bad. Real bad.
▪️ Ukraine [is] good. More money for Zelensky.
▪️ Trump is a convicted felon.
▪️ Do not fall asleep.
▪️ Don't slip and fall.

🤔 Seems legit

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❗️ Ukraine lost up to 4,410 troops, two tanks, eight armored combat vehicles, 48 other vehicles, and 39 field artillery pieces, including 11 US-made M777 and M198 howitzers, in the area of responsibility of Russia’s Yug Battlegroup during the week — Russian MoD

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❗️ The Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost up to 3,230 military personnel in the area of responsibility of the Russia's Zapad Battlegroup in a week, 56 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered as prisoners of war;

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s weekly briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️ The Tsentr Battlegroup defeated up to 2,950 Ukrainian soldiers in its area of responsibility;

▪️ Ukraine lost up to 740 military personnel and six field ammunition depots thanks to the actions of the Dnepr Battlegroup during the week;

▪️ The Sever Battlegroup defeated up to 1,560 Ukrainian military personnel and 12 armored vehicles;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces destroyed six HIMARS MLRS launchers and a transport and loading vehicle with foreign specialists.

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🇮🇷 📹 Tehran witnesses long lines of people wishing to vote in Iran's presidential election

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Congress openly discusses using US proxies against China

Vietnam can be used for that very purpose since it's "not a democracy," former senior advisor to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and executive vice president and senior policy advisor at Stephens Inc. think tank, Mary Kissel, stated at the Congress meeting.

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Three reasons why the Democrats will replace Biden

1. Biden’s disastrous debate performance confirmed the American public’s worst suspicions about the US president’s health and mental acuity. If this is the best Biden could do after a week of rest and preparation, then it’s no wonder alarm signs are going off in the Democratic Party.

2. Trump has consistently outpolled Biden in the key swing states – with recent poll showing Trump leading Biden in all seven swing states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada). If the Democrats cannot win a majority of the swing states, they will lose the election.

3. Biden is increasingly unpopular even among the Democratic Party’s core base. The War in Gaza has infuriated many left-wing millennial and Gen Z voters. At the same time, Trump is chipping away at Biden’s support among Black and Hispanic voters. Biden’s personal brand may be too toxic even for many longtime Democrats.

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Three reasons why the Democrats won't replace Biden

1. Biden is unlikely to drop out since he has spent his entire political career trying to become President of the United States. Stepping down would mean sacrificing his own personal ambition for the greater good of his party, something that Biden – a noted egoist – is unlikely to do;

2. Organizing a Democratic Party coup against Biden would be extraordinarily messy and difficult to execute. Biden won 3,894 out of 4,000 potential delegates during the Democratic primaries. Additionally, the head of the Democratic National Convention -- Jaime Harrison – is a longtime Biden ally. Replacing Biden against his will would require his opponents to convince thousands of delegates and the party’s leadership to throw Biden under the bus;

3. Absence of viable alternatives. US Vice President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttegieg were once touted as potential Biden successors, but both of them have visibly struggled in office. California Governor Gavin Newsom has underwater approval ratings in a solidly Democratic state.

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Happy Ukrainian Constitution Day for the country that threw it out

June 28 marks Ukraine's Constitution Day celebrating its fundamental law that is now blithely violated by Volodymyr Zelensky who claims to still be president.

Zelensky’s legitimacy as president expired on May 20, as the Constitution doesn’t provide for extending one’s legitimate five-year term except for early elections that he conveniently decided to ‘postpone.’

According to the Constitution, within martial law, the parliament becomes a de facto higher branch of power once the president’s tenure is legally over. However, Zelensky is still in office, though his term ended over a month ago.

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Is that so, Joe? Fact-checking Biden’s presidential debate claims  

During CNN’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the US president made an array of false or misleading claims that further added fuel to the fire of speculations about POTUS’ deteriorating health. 

💬 CLAIM: Biden is “the only president this century that doesn’t have any…troops dying anywhere in the world, like he [Trump] did.”

❗️FACT: At least 16 US service members have been killed. They include 13 servicemen who died at the suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan when US troops abruptly withdrew from the country. In January, 2024, an enemy drone killed three US Army Reserve soldiers at a desert base in Jordan. 

💬 CLAIM: The unemployment rate was 15% when Biden entered office, according to him.  

❗️FACT: In January 2021, the unemployment rate was 6.4%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate was 14.8% at its highest in April 2020, when the US economy was disrupted by the emerging COVID-19 pandemic.

💬 CLAIM: There have been no terrorists coming across the US southern border, per Biden. 

❗️FACT: In the fiscal year of 2023, the US Border Patrol reported 172 encounters of people, whose names appeared on the federal government’s official list of known or suspected terrorists and their associates, up from about 100 in 2022 and 16 in 2020.

💬 CLAIM: Then US president Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.

❗️FACT: During the April 2020 press conference, Trump told reporters that he wondered if it would be possible to inject a disinfectant into a person infected with the coronavirus, as a deterrent to the disease.

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📹 Footage of Israeli settlers setting fire to Palestinian territory west of the town of Beit Furik, southeast of Nablus in the West Bank

Video from social media.

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Dutch man convicted of pedophilia was allowed to participate in Olympics as International Olympic Committee (IOC) saw no problems

Ten years ago, Steven van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl; he was released in 2017. A year later, he declared that he "did what he did" and called it "the biggest mistake of his life".

In 2024, the athlete was selected for the Dutch beach volleyball team. The country's volleyball federation said it knew his story, that he had served his sentence and was "completely reintegrated."

The nomination of individual team members "is the sole responsibility of each respective National Olympic Committee," the IOC responded to CNN.

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❗️Russia must respond to US actions and it seems necessary for Russia to start production of intermediate nuclear strike systems — Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed discussing the country's next steps regarding a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles at an operational meeting with permanent members of the Security Council.

"You and I will consider today the issue of the Russian Federation's further steps regarding the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of land-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles," Putin said.

The US today not only produces intermediate-range nuclear missiles, but also brings them to Europe, the president stressed.

It's unknown whether the United States removed medium- and short-range missiles from the Philippines, where they were previously delivered as part of drills.

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Democrats' failure could end in 'civil war' – US psy-op veteran

Biden's mental confusion was on full display during yesterday's presidential debate, as well as "his belligerent lies and delusions about the Ukraine war history, Russia's legitimate foreign policy concerns, the US-EU-NATO war of terror against Russian citizens and funding [neo-]Nazis," Scott Bennett, former US Army officer and state department counterterrorism analyst, tells Sputnik.

In the wake of Biden's debate fiasco, Bennett expects that the Democratic Party may try to replace him and VP Kamala Harris with new candidates like California Governor Gavin Newsom or his Michigan counterpart Gretchen Whitmer, adding that "it’s going to be a very bumpy ride."

"Democrats are incapable and unwilling to relinquish political power" and political division in the country will deepen, posing a risk of a new "civil war," the former psychological warfare analyst concluded.

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