July 3, 2024
TRUMP NEW YORK TRIAL | Following Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, New York Judge Juan M. Merchan yesterday postponed the sentencing of former President Donald Trump for his felony conviction on charges of falsification of business records. Merchan is now expected to rule on a motion to overturn the conviction and hold sentencing hearings in September. [more]
U.S. ABORTION | Activists in Arizona, Nebraska, and Arkansas are expected to submit petitions this week to place abortion-related issues on their states’ ballots for the November general election, seeking to join five other states – Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and South Dakota – where ballot initiatives on enshrining abortion rights in state constitutions are already in place. [more]
U.S. POLITICS | The presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Donald Trump have reported second-quarter 2024 fundraising results, with Biden having raised $264 million, while the Trump campaign raised $331 million. [more]
U.S. LGBTQ+ | Kansas-based U.S. District Judge John Broomes yesterday blocked the expansion of Title IX anti-discrimination protections to include LGBTQ+ students in Alaska, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming while challenges to the federal regulation continue in court. [more]
U.S. CLIMATE | A new study published in Nature Communications says melting of Alaska’s Juneau icefield accelerated in 2015-2019 to five-times the rate seen from 1979-1990 and notes that, under high-pollution scenarios, 30% of glacier ice could disappear from Alaska by the year 2100. [full study] [more]
U.S. ECONOMY | Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said yesterday that while significant progress has been made in fighting inflation this year, more evidence of economic cooling will be needed before the Fed is ready to cut its benchmark interest rate. [more]
MORE U.S. ECONOMY | Labor Department data released yesterday indicates that job openings in the U.S. rose to 8.1 million in May – up from a revised 7.9 million in April – while layoffs rose from 1.54 million to 1.65 million over the same period. [more]
HURRICANE BERYL | Hurricane warnings are in effect this morning for Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac as Hurricane Beryl continues its movement across the southern Caribbean as a Category 4 storm. [more]
U.K. ELECTIONS | Ahead of tomorrow’s parliamentary election voting, polling suggests the U.K.’s Labour Party is on course for a major victory that would end 14 years of Conservative government. [more]
RUSSIA | Data released by Russia’s finance ministry today indicates that year-over-year proceeds for Russia's federal budget from oil and gas sales rose by about 41% to $65.12 billion in the first half of 2024, despite Western sanctions imposed on the industries over the invasion of Ukraine. [more]
RUSSIA AND CHINA | In what analysts suggest is a show of deepening cooperation between their countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet this week on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit being held in Kazakhstan. [more]
INDIA | Authorities in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state say the death toll from yesterday’s stampede at a local religious event has risen to at least 121 and that overcrowding, poor planning, and bad weather all contributed to the incident. [more]
TAIWAN AND CHINA | Officials with Taiwan’s coast guard say Chinese vessels detained a Taiwanese fishing boat overnight off the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen and that China warned Taiwan against interfering with the detention. [more]
JAPAN | In a ruling today, Japan's top court said a now-defunct eugenics law that saw some 16,500 disabled people forcibly sterilized between the 1950s and 1990s was unconstitutional and ordered that damages be paid to 11 surviving victims of the law whose cases were heard on appeal. [more]
TECH INDUSTRY | Citing artificial intelligence and the demand it puts on data centers, tech giant Google said yesterday that greenhouse gas emissions from its operations increased 13% in 2023, compared to 2022, complicating company plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. [more]
BIRD FLU | Reports say the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to pay vaccine maker Moderna $176 million to accelerate its development of a vaccine that could be used to treat bird flu in people. [more]
SOCCER | The Netherlands and Turkey claimed the final two spots in the Euro 2024 tournament semifinals yesterday with victories over Romania and Austria, respectively. [full bracket] [more]
BASKETBALL | Rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are among the players selected yesterday for the WNBA All-Star team, which will play against the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team on July 20. [more]
TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1863, the pivotal three-day U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended in a major victory for the Union as Confederate troops failed to breach Union positions during an assault known as Pickett’s Charge. [more history]