Held

• Judicial Watch successfully used a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to force the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to release eight pages of internal documents. • The released records reveal that an ODNI task force identified specific vulnerabilities within U.S. election systems that could be exploited by foreign adversaries. • The documents indicate that the Intelligence Community intentionally withheld information regarding these security flaws from the American public.

Spokesperson says islands ‘definitely’ belong to the UK‘PM wishes both teams well for the final, especially Spain’Keir Starmer supports the idea of Fifa investigating Argentina players who displayed a banner touting their country’s claim to the Falklands Islands after their World Cup semi-final win against England, Downing Street has said.Starmer, who watched the match while travelling to Ukraine by train for the final overseas trip of his prime ministership, endorsed a call by Peter Kyle, the business secretary, for Fifa to “thoroughly” investigate what rules may have been broken. Continue reading...

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah will lose ‘close to a million and a half acres each’ and open land to developers and oil industryDonald Trump has approved a sharp reduction in the size of two national monuments in Utah held sacred by many Native Americans, in the latest move to open US public land to corporate developers and the oil and gas industry.The two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, will see a reduction of “close to a million and a half acres each”, Trump said during an executive order signing event on Monday, undoing protections established by former presidents. Continue reading...

Presidential bid by leader of far-right National Rally has no shortage of supporters in scenic MontargisIn the small French town of Montargis, Jean-Antoine, a retired decorator, was pleased Marine Le Pen had again shaken up French politics by launching a bid for the presidency, despite her legal woes.“Even the judges said she didn’t personally profit from the money, it was for her party,” he said of Le Pen’s newly upheld conviction for embezzlement. “All politicians in France have always been schemers, it’s just a fact of life.” Continue reading...

Constituents to vote in contest being boycotted by major parties over financial scandal surrounding Reform leaderReform UK will request that the Clacton byelection be held on 6 August, the party has said, after Nigel Farage’s decision to resign from the seat.The Reform UK leader, who has represented the Essex constituency since the 2024 general election, said on Tuesday he was standing down and would put himself forward again in what he has sought to portray as a “people versus the establishment” contest. Continue reading...

Updated document also commits party to cracking down on inducements for online gambling, putting pressure on Albanese government to toughen reformsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastLabor will water down its opposition to mandatory jail sentences but has abandoned an earlier draft of its policy platform that would have seen the party scrap its longheld stance entirely.The draft platform obtained by Guardian Australia also commits Labor to cracking down on inducements for online wagering, putting pressure on the Albanese government to toughen up its proposed reforms to gambling advertising. Continue reading...

Firm reportedly felt it was in public interest to test alibi offered by former prince after Virginia Giuffre accusationPizza Express held an internal inquiry to investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s visit to its Woking branch, as he has claimed he did on the day he is alleged to have had sex with a teenage victim of Jeffrey Epstein 20 miles away in central London, it has been reported.According to sources who spoke to the BBC, senior management at the restaurant chain held the investigation because they felt it was in the public interest to test the alibi the former Duke of York had offered. The broadcaster reported that the company had found neither evidence he had been to the restaurant in Surrey, nor evidence to definitively say he had not. Continue reading...