The United States was eliminated from the Copa America with a 1-0 loss to Uruguay on Mathías Olivera’s questionable second-half goal Monday night, a defeat that will increase pressure on the U.S. Soccer Federation to remove coach Gregg Berhalter before the 2026 World Cup.

Uruguay scored in the 66th minute when Nicolas De La Cruz swung a free kick in front of the U.S. goal. Matt Turner parried a header by Ronald Araújo, who out-jumped defender Tim Ream, but the rebound went right to Olivera and he tapped the ball in with his left foot.

Olivera appeared to be offside on the initial header, but the goal stood after a video review.

Using a lineup of players entirely from European clubs, Berhalter and the U.S. hoped to show the team had advanced since its round-of-16 elimination against the Netherlands at the 2026 World Cup. Instead, the U.S. opened with a 2-0 win over lowly Bolivia before being upset 2-1 by Panama.

Three minutes before Uruguay scored, the U.S. was in position to advance when Bruno Miranda tied the score for Bolivia against Panama in a game that started simultaneously in Orlando, Florida. But Panama went on to earn a 3-1 victory and claimed the second spot in Group C behind Uruguay.

Berhalter was rehired in June 2023 and given a contract through the 2026 World Cup, which the U.S. will co-host with Canada and Mexico. But despite a lineup that included Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams, the U.S. failed to even match its last Copa America appearance, when it lost to Argentina in the 2016 quarterfinals.

The U.S. next plays September friendlies against Canada and New Zealand.

Uruguay played without coach Marcelo Bielsa, suspended for sending his team out late for the second half of its first two games. Diego Reyes and Pablo Quiroga were in charge on a mild but humid night in Kansas City.

Berhalter and the Americans knew their situation was dire — Pulisic at one point said they would need to play “the best game of our lives” to advance — and they looked like a team with nothing to lose for most of the first half.

It was one marked by physical play and questionable calls.

Folarin Balogun, who had two goals already in the tournament, bore the brunt of several challenges. He was left calling for help after a collision with Uruguayan goalkeeper Sergio Rochet, then was left rolling on the field after Araújo’s challenge later in the half. Balogun eventually had to leave with a hip pointer and Ricardo Pepi took his place.

Uruguay lost Maximiliano Araújo earlier in the half after a scary collision with Ream near the U.S. goal. He had to be taken off the field on a stretcher, though he was able to move his arms before heading up the tunnel.

In the middle of the chaos was 32-year-old Peruvian referee Kevin Ortega, who made several questionable calls that hurt the U.S.

The first came when Ortega began to pull a yellow card and stop play, then allowed it to continue — while still holding the card — as Uruguay nearly scored on an attack. The second came when the U.S. had a clear advantage after a hand ball by Uruguay, but the Peruvian referee blew his whistle and called the play back for a free kick.

Uruguay started to apply more pressure midway through the second half, then had the Americans in desperation mode after Olivera found the back of the net. And while the U.S. had a few good runs, and a couple of good opportunities in the box, a team that had such big expectations was unable to find the two goals it needed — or even one.

A Palm Beach County prosecutor painted two girls molested by Jeffrey Epstein as prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves and liars in front of a grand jury empaneled in 2006 to review the state’s criminal case against sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, newly released court documents show.

Palm Beach County Judge Luis Delgado unsealed the controversial grand jury records on Monday after years of legal action by the Palm Beach Post and other media, including the Miami Herald, CNN and the New York Times. Grand jury records are normally kept under seal to protect witnesses as well as the integrity of the case. But in the years since the Epstein case was closed in 2008, the Miami Herald uncovered evidence suggesting that Epstein and his battery of high-priced attorneys may have exerted undue influence over the state attorney.

The records have remained under seal for 16 years. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, prodded by state lawmakers and Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, signed a bill to release the files by July 1. The new bill provides for the records to be unsealed if the subject of a grand jury inquiry is dead or the investigation involves sexual activity with a minor.

DeSantis noted that making the records public might explain how the wealthy Epstein managed to “engineer an outcome that the average citizen would likely never have been able” to accomplish.

The records contain nearly 200 pages, including the testimony of two girls who were molested by Epstein, the New York financier who abused hundreds of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion between 1996 and 2008. Epstein managed to escape serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case.

The Herald reported in 2018 that both Krischer and the lead prosecutor in the case, Lanna Belohlavek, told Palm Beach police that they didn’t intend to prosecute Epstein because they believed the girls were prostitutes and a jury would never believe them. But Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the lead detective, Joe Recarey, both protested the decision, noting that there were multiple victims, some as young as 14, who were lured to his home under false pretenses. Reiter and Recarey went over Krischer’s head and took the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, arguing that Epstein, who was in his 50s, was a serial sex predator who wouldn’t stop until he was put in prison.

“There was no reason to take this case to a grand jury in the first place,” said Spencer Kuvin, the attorney representing one of the girls who testified before the grand jury. “They had evidence of numerous victims to show that he was a serial sex predator. The only reason they gave it to the grand jury was to taint their own case and have an excuse not to prosecute.”

The grand jury and the girls

The actual audio recordings of the daylong proceeding were not released to the public Monday. The Herald requested the recordings, but was told that they were not available. The transcripts also seem to be missing key elements that would normally be part of a grand jury proceeding. For example, there is no record that Belohlavek introduced herself to the panel, explained what the case was about or told the jury what they were supposed to do. There’s no closing statement summarizing the case or any documentation of what the grand jury ultimately decided.

What is clear is that Belohlavek painted an unsympathetic portrait of the two girls, both of whom came from broken families. One of the girls and her sister had been passed back and forth between parents and were taken to a school for troubled juveniles. The girl ran away several times before meeting a group of older kids, one of whom brought her to Epstein’s mansion.

She described for the jury how she was ushered into a large bedroom and instructed to strip down to her underwear. Alone in the room with Epstein, and confused about what was happening, she reluctantly complied. After he molested her, he gave her $200.

In front of the jury, Belohlavek asked the girl: “You’re aware that you committed a crime?”

“Now I am. I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it,” said the girl, who was 14 at the time. “Like, I — I don’t know. I guess it was prostitution or something like that.”

Belohlavek also asked the girls questions about their parents, and allowed members of the jury to make statements to the victims.

“Did you have any idea that deep inside of you that you — what you’re doing is wrong?” asked one juror.

“Yea, I did,” the girl replied.

“Oh do you?” the juror said, pointing out that the girl should have known better.

Asked another juror “Did it ever occur to you that he could have hacked you up?”

“Yes,” she stammered. “I thought about it a lot.”

Said the juror: “[You] should give it a little further thought.”

David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, was astonished at the way the case was presented to the jury. He pointed out that the girls were under the age of consent, yet they were the ones treated like criminals.

“How is that not statutory rape?” he said of Epstein’s crime. “I can see how people think that a wealthy powerful man got away with abusing all these girls.”

Recarey, the lead investigator on the case, testified in detail at the proceeding about how Epstein and his assistants would recruit girls from local high schools, telling them initially that they were being hired to give him massages. While they were instructed to lie about their ages, many of them told Epstein their real ages and spoke to them about high school.

Recarey, who passed away in 2018, told the Herald in an interview prior to his death that he was frustrated by the state attorney’s handling of the case, claiming that Krischer and Belohlavek went to great lengths to discredit the girls — and failed to present to the jury the corroborating evidence that backed up the girls’ stories, including phone records.

Neither Krischer nor Belohlavek has ever commented on the case. The Herald was unsuccessful in reaching them on Monday. Both have since retired.

The years that followed

Epstein’s case came under fresh scrutiny in 2018, following an investigation by the Herald into the secret negotiations that led Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who later oversaw a federal probe into the case, to approve a light jail sentence for Epstein.

Epstein would serve just 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal privileges to work in his outside office and at his Palm Beach mansion. After his release from jail, he continued to assault and abuse women at his homes in New York, New Mexico, Paris and on his isolated island off the coast of St. Thomas.

Epstein befriended a host of famous and powerful people, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Nobel-Prize winners, actresses, actors, hedge fund moguls and bankers. Some of his victims allege that he and some of his friends had sex parties with girls on his private island.

The Herald’s series led the FBI and US Attorney in New York to take another look at the case. He was re-arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges and jailed in Manhattan pending trial. He was found dead in his cell a month after his arrest. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging. He was 66.

His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, 63, was subsequently charged in the case and convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021. Maxwell, a British socialite who had a long relationship with Epstein, was accused of helping him recruit girls. She is appealing her sentence.

Kuvin, who came to represent nine Epstein victims, wasn’t surprised by how the jurors shamed his 14-year-old client.

“Think about this in the time frame this was happening,” he said. “That was the mindset back then. This is pre ‘Me Too’ movement. We have a come a long way as a society because of cases like this. We have matured as a society and hopefully look at this differently than we did back then.”

President Joe Biden made his first major appearance since his panic-inspiring debate performance Monday to give brief remarks on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision that was released earlier in the day.

Biden spoke for five minutes, from a teleprompter, on the court finding that presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” taken in office. After Biden criticized the decision, calling it a “dangerous precedent,” he quickly left without taking a single question as reporters shouted inquiries his way.

“Mr. President, will you drop out of the race?” one reporter can be heard shouting. Another seemingly asked how he can assure Democrats that he is the best man to defeat former President Donald Trump.

“There are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law,” Biden said. “No one, no one is above the law, not even the President of the United States.”

“With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed, for all, for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do,” he continued. “This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States — the only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”

Biden’s Monday speech was his first major appearance since scores of Democrats began calling for him to drop out of the presidential race. The calls began just thirty minutes after Biden took the debate stage last Thursday night and began stumbling over answers and sounding confused.

Biden malfunctions, Jake Tapper saves him pic.twitter.com/oUkv5vqKeR

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 28, 2024

As the Biden campaign did damage control, the president appeared at campaign events over the weekend and briefly addressed his debate performance to donors.

“I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know — I know how to tell the truth,” Biden said at a North Carolina rally on Friday.

The president later admitted at a Saturday rally that he knew it wasn’t his best debate and understood the “concern.”

Biden and his family gathered at Camp David over the weekend to reportedly discuss his presidential bid. After the weekend, “the entire family is united” and the president’s son, Hunter Biden, is pushing the hardest for his dad to stay in the race, sources close to the situation told the New York Times.

“I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers I have for three and a half years, but any president including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law. I concur with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent today. Here’s what she said: she said ‘in every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’ End of quote. So should the American people dissent — I dissent,” Biden concluded.

BIDEN: “I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power as I have for 3.5 years.”

ALSO BIDEN: “The Supreme Court blocked it (student loan scheme) but that didn’t stop me.”

If he’s breathing he’s lying. pic.twitter.com/zJv7LW9ny1

— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) July 2, 2024

Critics rushed to point out that Biden himself usurped the Supreme Court by erasing billions of dollars in student loan debt during his term despite the court ruling that he lacked the power to do so.

“The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me,” he once said of his loan forgiveness plans.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., threatened to bring articles of impeachment against the Supreme Court after Monday’s immunity ruling regarding former President Trump.

“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X.

“Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”

The ruling in question said a president has absolute immunity from prosecution for “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” and “presumptive immunity” for official acts in general. The court said there is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Ocasio-Cortez was not the only congressional Democrat to blast the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., vowed that “House Democrats will engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision to grant legal immunity to a former President for crimes committed using his official power sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation,” Jeffries said.

“This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X.

“The very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law. Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president.”

The court’s ruling did not say whether any of Trump’s alleged actions fell under his constitutional powers, leaving such matters to be sorted out by a lower court.

Jill Biden graced the cover of Vogue as she’s accused of ‘elder abuse’ by allowing Joe to continue his 2024 reelection campaign despite his disastrous debate.

The first lady covers the August issue of the fashion magazine in a $7,000 outfit, including a white power suit. The photo portrays an image of authority at a time Democrats say she is the only one who can talk Joe Biden off the presidential ticket and reigniting charges from conservatives that the first lady is a real power in the White House.

‘We will decide our future,’ reads the magazine’s tagline.

The glowing piece – which includes a short interview with Biden – was done before the president’s disastrous June 27th debate performance. It focuses on her work as first lady – including her fight for women’s health – and notes her commitment to another term in the White House.

Vogue affixed an editors’ note atop the online story to acknowledge current events. It notes the first lady called in from Camp David over the weekend – where the Biden family was gathered – to double down on her support for the president, brushing off Joe Biden’s fumbles in Thursday night’s debate.

She told Vogue that we ’will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight.’ President Biden, she added, ‘will always do what’s best for the country.’

The family was at Camp David over the weekend for what the White House said as a pre-planned photoshoot with legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz.

The timing of the piece is unfortunate.

Democrats continue to question whether the 81-year-old Biden has the ability to do the job as president. Talk continues about replacing him on the ticket and many say Jill Biden is the one who can convince him to exit the race for the good of the country.

Conservatives denounced her as the real power in the White House. And the powerful image on the cover of Vogue brough more accusations against her.

‘At some point, after so many warnings, it starts to look like this is why the Biden family won’t let him leave the race,’ Sara Isgur, at editor at the Dispatch, wrote on X, sharing Jill Biden’s Vogue cover.

‘There has never been a more maniacal, power-obsessed first lady than Jill Biden,’ wrote conservative commentator James Fischback.

‘The idea that folks who’ve fallen in love with the relevance and fame that Biden has brought them will willingly give that up is hilarious,’ wrote Republican operative Matt Gorman.

Over the cover, Jill Biden wears a $2,820 white Ralph Lauren double-breasted coat dress on the cover with $4,550 earrings.

In the article, author Maya Singer writes the first lady missed their planned Soul Cycle session the morning of the cover shoot because she had to be with husband Joe.

‘I’m sorry we didn’t get to exercise,’ she said the first lady told her, noting ‘the plan got nixed so she could spend some time at home — home home, in Wilmington — with her husband.’

‘It’s not that often Joe and I get to have a whole morning together, just coffee, you know, talking,’ Jill Biden says.

One of the charges facing the Biden family is that they’ve kept the real state of Joe Biden’s health hidden by keeping him in Wilmington and keeping residence staff away from him in the White House.

The White House denies the allegations. But the questions about his health are growing.

In the Vogue piece, Singer traveled with Jill Biden on several campaign stops. She also accompanied her to the Columbine Memorial in Colorado and watched her call donors to promote Joe Biden.

Her message was one she often says on the campaign trail: that only Joe Biden can save Democracy.

And Biden has her defenders in the piece.

‘I see her as a first lady in the Eleanor Roosevelt mold—getting out into the community, making sure those voices are getting heard in Washington,’ Dr. Jane O’Meara Sanders told the magazine. She is the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders.

In the article, Jill Biden does acknowledge the rigors of campaigning. She has been a regular on the campaign stump, often campaigning more than President Biden.

‘Every campaign is important, and every campaign is hard,’ she says. ‘Each campaign is unique. But this one, the urgency is different. We know what’s at stake. Joe is asking the American people to come together to draw a line in the sand against all this vitriol.’

The Biden family is now in the spotlight for unwelcome reasons – having their role questioned in their protection of the president. Hunter Biden is also said to be urging his father to stay in the race. As are the grandchildren.

The family was at Camp David over the weekend for what the White House said as a pre-planned photoshoot with legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz.

And Jill Biden will remain her family’s fiercest defender.

Anthony Bernal, her senior adviser who has been close to the Bidens for years, told Vogue: ‘Her family means everything to her—so of course, you could say her ‘Philly’ kicks in when her family gets attacked. It’s cruel. What mother wouldn’t feel that? Especially after everything they’ve gone through, all that tragedy and loss.’

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday as fighting raged in Gaza and Israeli tanks advanced deeper in parts of the enclave, residents and officials said.

Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas – both of whom are backed by Iran – said its fighters fired rockets towards several Israeli communities near the fence with Gaza in response to “the crimes of the Zionist enemy against our Palestinian people”.

The volley of about 20 rockets caused no casualties, the Israeli military said. But the attack showed militants still possess rocket capabilities almost nine months into an offensive that Israel says is aimed at neutralising threats against it.

Residents of several neighbourhoods in eastern Khan Younis, which is in southern Gaza, said they had received audio messages from Israeli phone numbers ordering them to leave their homes.

“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the humanitarian zone,” army spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on social media platform X in a call to residents and displaced people living in those areas.

Some suggested this could mean Israeli forces will return to the area, which they left several weeks ago. The Israeli military said in a statement earlier on Monday the rockets were fired from the Khan Younis area.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was nearing its goal of taking out the military capabilities of Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza and led the Oct. 7 assault on Israel that sparked the war. Less intense operations would continue, he said.

“We are advancing to the end of the phase of eliminating the terrorist army of Hamas, and there will be a continuation to strike its remnants,” Netanyahu said.

Violence also flared on Monday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian health ministry said a woman and a boy were killed in the city of Tulkarm during an operation by Israeli forces. A day earlier, an Israeli strike in the same area killed an Islamic Jihad member.

In some parts of Gaza, militants continue to stage attacks on Israeli forces in areas that the army had left months ago.

Israeli tanks deepened incursions into the Shejaia suburb of eastern Gaza City for a fifth day, and tanks advanced further in western and central Rafah, in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, residents said.

The Israeli military said it had killed a number of militants in combat in Shejaia on Monday and found large amounts of weapons there.

Hamas said its fighters had lured an Israeli force into a booby-trapped house in the east of Rafah and blown it up, causing casualties.

The Israeli military announced the death of a soldier in southern Gaza without providing details. Israel’s Army Radio said the soldier was killed in Rafah in a booby-trapped house – a possible reference to the incident reported by Islamic Jihad.

Also in Rafah, the Israeli military said that an airstrike killed a militant who fired an anti-tank missile at its troops.

Israel has signalled that its operation in Rafah, meant to stamp out Hamas, will soon be concluded. After the intense phase of the war is over, its forces will focus on smaller scale operations meant to stop Hamas reassembling, officials say.

The war began when Hamas-led fighters burst into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killed 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, including civilians and soldiers, back into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation has killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins.

The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says 317 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza and that at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.

Ceasefire Efforts Stalled

Arab mediators’ efforts to secure a ceasefire, backed by the United States, have stalled. Hamas says any deal must end the war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas is eradicated.

Israeli authorities released 54 Palestinians it had detained during the war, Palestinian border officials said.

Among them was Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, the director of Al Shifa Hospital, arrested by the military when its forces first stormed the medical facility in November.
Israel said Hamas had been using the hospital for military purposes. The military has released the hospital’s CCTV footage from Oct. 7 showing gunmen and hostages on the premises and has taken journalists into a tunnel found at the complex.

Hamas has denied using hospitals for military purposes. Abu Selmeyah rejected the allegations on Monday and said detainees had been abused during their detention, including being deprived of food and medicine, and that some had died.

“I was subjected to severe torture, my little finger was broken, and I was beaten in the head until blood came out, more than once,” Abu Selmeyah told a press conference at a hospital in southern Gaza.

Israel in May said it was investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the war as well as a military-run detention camp where released detainees and rights groups have alleged abuse of inmates.

A group of people were detained on suspicion of planning a coup in Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.

A post on the Prosecutor General’s official Telegram page on Monday said police “exposed a group of pseudo-activists who were preparing provocations” in the country’s capital on June 30.

Four citizens were charged by local prosecutors over distribution of materials calling for violent overthrow of Ukraine’s government and constitutional order, the post said. Two individuals were remanded in custody.

Investigators said that between May and June, a group of people disseminated posts online discrediting Ukraine’s current leadership and pushing for a seize of state power.

The alleged coup’s organizer, who is said to be a local public union head with prior record of participation in “fruitless” provocations [against the government], rented a hall in Kyiv with a capacity of around 2,000.

Authorities also said he was attempting to recruit servicemen and private militia to help carry out the plan.

The organizer’s accomplices were said to be from the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions, in the east and north of the country, respectively.

According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, the head of an NGO from Prykarpattia was also approached to join the group, but they refused due to the “obvious illegality.”

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU or SBU) said the group “has been known for its anti-Ukrainian actions since 2015.”

They allegedly hoped to seize the building where Ukraine’s parliament meets, which is located in the center of Kyiv.

The group reportedly communicated via various messaging platforms and would meet in small groups of three people.

Law enforcement said that searches at the homes of involved suspects yielded weapons and ammunition, mobile phones, and computer equipment with “evidence of criminal acts.”

The detainees were arrested under chapters one, two, and three, article nine, of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (actions and calls for action aimed at violent change or overthrow of the constitutional order or seizure of state power), according to a release from the SSU.

People who were encouraged to attend the event by organizers were not fully aware of its true intentions, authorities said.

The SSU said the organizers hoped to “destabilize the socio-political situation inside [Ukraine], which would play in favor of the Russian Federation.”

If found guilty, those involved could face up to 10 years in prison. The investigation is ongoing.

Officials say an 18-year-old was caught on camera doing doughnuts on the Pride mural at the Central Avenue and 25th Street roundabout.

According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, Christian Carroll Maier was captured on video on May 22 at 3:45 a.m. doing circular “doughnut-burnouts” while driving his car.

Florida teen ARRESTED for doing DONUTS over a Pride street mural. 😲‼️

18-year-old Christian Maier is being charged with felony criminal mischief and street racing, sparking outrage in the LGBTQ+ community. pic.twitter.com/LCkorR4hQU

— DramaAlert (@DramaAlert) July 1, 2024

The video showed Maier leaving several tire marks across the mural and causing significant damage, according to SPPD.

Police say he was charged with felony criminal mischief and racing on a street.

According to the police department, the City and volunteers restored the mural in time for the Pride Month festivities.

The investigation is ongoing.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in Trump v. United States that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

“The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive,” he said.

“The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party,” he continued.

Read the supreme court opinion.

The question stemmed from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal election interference case in which he charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Those charges stem from Smith’s months-long investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued he should be immune from prosecution from official acts done as president of the U.S.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”

“Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President … the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent,” she said.

Smith’s case against the former president and its trial have been pending amid the high court’s consideration of the issue.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, former President Trump said, “I have been harassed by the Democrat Party, Joe Biden, Obama and their thugs, fascists and communists for years, and now the courts have spoken.”

“This is a big win for our Constitution and for democracy. Now I am free to campaign like anyone else. We are leading in every poll—by a lot—and we will make America great again,” he said.

The justices heard arguments from Trump attorney John Sauer and Michael Dreeben, a Justice Department attorney representing Special Counsel Jack Smith, on April 25 on whether presidents should have “absolute immunity.”

During those arguments, both liberal and conservative justices focused on the broader implications of the question for future presidents but raised sharply different concerns.

Justice Samuel Alito questioned the repercussions of charging a former president.

“Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possible nullity after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent,” Alito asked, “will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail,” he said.

Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Biden, asked if the “potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?”

“If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential full penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country,” she said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh summed up the stakes for the court’s decision: “This will have huge implications for the presidency.”

“I’m not talking about the present, so I’m talking about the future,” Kavanaugh said.

And Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed during questioning: “We’re writing a rule for, yes, for the ages.”

As for Alito’s question, the former president has repeatedly claimed that he is being prosecuted by his political opponents, warning Americans and voters that all cases against him, in all jurisdictions, are being brought by his opponent — President Biden — and being done in coordination with the White House.

Meanwhile, the ruling comes after a New York jury found Trump guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation.

Hunter Biden is suing Fox News for its The Trial of Hunter Biden series, according to a Sunday court filing in New York County Supreme Court.

Biden’s attorneys said the “series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain.” They’re also taking issue with the outlet’s publication of photos “depicting him in the nude … as well as engaged in sex acts.”

The lawsuit fulfills a threat made by Biden’s lawyers that they would sue over the series, which the network took down in April.

The series on Fox Nation, its streaming service, offered a fictionalized version of what a trial against Biden might look like. The television personality overseeing it, Judge Joe Brown, warned viewers that what they were seeing was not a real trial and that Biden was not facing charges.

“Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information,” the lawsuit notes.

“Indeed, the entire miniseries is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case. … While using certain true information, the series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain. Thus, the viewer of the series cannot decipher what is fact and what is fiction, which is highly damaging to Mr. Biden.”

Biden’s attorneys cite three causes of action: a violation of Biden’s civil rights due to the intimate images “disseminated and published” by Fox, alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress by Fox, and Fox News’s alleged unjust enrichment from the series.

Biden’s attorneys also cite the Dominion Voting Systems judgement against Fox News as to “not be the first time that Fox knowingly engaged in unlawful conduct.”

Biden is seeking punitive and compensatory damage awards, an order directing Fox News to “take down, remove and delete any publication of an Intimate Image of Mr. Biden,” a permanent injunction enjoining defendants from publishing, disseminating, disclosing, posting, or uploading any intimate images of Biden, and disgorgement of profits from The Trial of Hunter Biden, among other things.

Meanwhile, Biden is dealing with litigation against him as well, as he was recently convicted in his gun trial and faces more criminal charges in his California tax case.

House Republicans on Monday filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Merrick Garland for the audio recording of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel in his classified documents case, asking the courts to enforce their subpoena and reject the White House’s effort to withhold the materials from Congress.

The lawsuit filed by the House Judiciary Committee marks Republicans’ latest broadside against the Justice Department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign. The legal action comes weeks after the White House blocked Garland from releasing the audio recording to Congress by asserting executive privilege.

Republicans in the House responded by voting to make Garland the third attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department refused to take up the contempt referral, citing the agency’s “longstanding position and uniform practice” to not prosecute officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.

The lawsuit states that Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made a “last-ditch effort” last week to Garland to resolve the issue without taking legal action but the attorney general referred the Republicans to the White House, which rebuffed the “effort to find a solution to this impasse.”

The congressional inquiry began with the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report in February, which found evidence that Biden, a Democrat, willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen. Yet Hur concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.

Republicans, incensed by Hur’s decision, issued a subpoena for audio of his interviews with Biden during the spring. But the Justice Department turned over only some of the records, leaving out audio of the interview with the president.

“The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview,” the lawsuit reads. “The Committee thus needs those recordings to assess the Special Counsel’s characterization of the President, which he and White House lawyers have forcefully disputed, and ultimate recommendation that President Biden should not be prosecuted.”

On the last day to comply with the Republicans’ subpoena for the audio, the White House blocked the release by invoking executive privilege. It said that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.

Executive privilege gives presidents the right to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of decision-making, though it can be challenged in court. Administrations of both major political parties have long held the position that officials who assert a president’s claim of executive privilege can’t be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, a Justice Department official told Republicans last month.

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte cited a committee’s decision in 2008 to back down from a contempt effort after President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege to keep Congress from getting records involving Vice President Dick Cheney.

It’s unclear how the lawsuit will play out. Courts have not had much to say about executive privilege. But in the 1974 case over President Richard Nixon’s refusal to release Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court held that the privilege is not absolute. In other words, the case for turning over documents or allowing testimony may be more compelling than arguments for withholding them. In that context, the court ruled 8-0 that Nixon had to turn over the tapes.

When it came to the Watergate tapes, the Supreme Court said it had the final word, and lower courts have occasionally weighed in to resolve other disputes. But courts also have made clear they prefer that the White House and Congress resolve their disagreements without judicial intervention, when possible.

Despite his public support for the president, Barack Obama is privately lobbying to get rid of Joe Biden, telling insiders he cannot defeat Trump, according to what Tucker Carlson described as an “unusually good source.”

Biden got completely embarrassed during Thursday night’s debate, spreading panic amongst top Democrats and leading the New York Times to insist that he should step aside.

Despite the backlash, Obama tweeted his support for Biden, asserting that “bad debate nights happen” and that people should still stick with him. However, Obama is reportedly saying very different things in private.

From an unusually good source: Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention. Obama will not say whom he supports, nor as of yesterday afternoon had he met personally…

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 1, 2024

“From an unusually good source: Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention,” Tucker Carlson posted on X.

“Obama will not say whom he supports, nor as of yesterday afternoon had he met personally with Biden to deliver the message,” he added.

Carlson made it clear that relations between the Obamas and Bidens have “deteriorated further,” and that Jill Biden is driving her husband’s reckless decision to stay in the presidential race.

“In the hours and days after the debate, she kept her husband cloistered away from anyone who might convince him to drop out. Jill Biden is the driving force behind her husband’s reelection campaign, just as she was in 2020, when other members of the family (including Biden’s sister Val) considered him too impaired to run.”

“The next generation of potential Democratic candidates understands all this as an opportunity and they’re circling, particularly Gretchen Whitmer, who is promoting herself aggressively.”

Meanwhile, the Biden family held a crunch meeting at Camp David yesterday during which they urged the president to stay in the race despite his shocking debate performance.

Rather ludicrously, Jill Biden and others are telling Joe Biden that not only can he continue his campaign and defeat Trump, but is also fit to serve another four years.

Yes, they seriously believe that a man who is already clearly showing signs of dementia in July 2024 can be the most powerful man in the world with the nuclear codes until January 2029, at which point he will be 86-years-old.

Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl whose body was found in a creek in north Houston in June, was sexually assaulted, results from the Houston Forensic Science Center confirmed on Monday.

Sources told ABC13’s Courtney Fischer the district attorney’s office received the results from HFSC on Sunday.

Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, are charged with capital murder in Jocelyn’s death. The girl was strangled.

Both men have been arrested, and at last check, remain in jail on $10 million bond.

According to Texas law, because of Jocelyn’s age, both men were not eligible for the death penalty.

However, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said last week that if sexual assault were found, that would make the case death penalty eligible, and the state would then be able to ask for no bond.

Investigators said they believe Jocelyn snuck out of her home around 10 p.m. Sunday, June 16.

According to court documents, the two suspects asked her for directions after encountering her on Kuykendahl Road.

Court documents allege that the men then lured Jocelyn underneath a bridge, where they kept her for two hours. She was tied up, had her pants taken off, and was strangled, officials said.

A bystander found her body floating in a creek shortly before 7 a.m. on June 17.

The state added that Jocelyn and the men were seen on video at about 12:57 a.m. on June 17 walking down by the bayou. At 3:04 a.m., only the two men emerged.

An autopsy confirmed her cause of death was strangulation.

The state said it interviewed witnesses who told them they saw the men at Ojos Locos hours before Jocelyn’s murder.

According to another witness, Pena confessed he and Martinez did something bad after partying and were looking for money to leave town.

Both men worked construction and allegedly asked their boss for the funds after explaining what happened, the lead prosecutor told ABC13.

It was also revealed in court on Monday that Pena told authorities he tried to tell Martinez to stop, but then Martinez allegedly put his arm around Jocelyn’s neck and covered her mouth.

After she died, Martinez allegedly tied her up and told Pena to put her body in the water to remove any DNA. Martinez also reportedly admitted to changing his beard to avoid attention and had a bite mark and scratches on his arm.

After days of investigation, authorities arrested the two men at 13355 Northborough Drive, the Canfield Lakes Apartments.

The suspects, who are Venezuelan nationals, were in the U.S. illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said, adding that they didn’t know when or where they entered the country.

According to the agency, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended Martinez near El Paso on March 14, but he was released that same day on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear.

U.S. Border Patrol arrested Pena on May 28, also near El Paso. On the same day he was apprehended, a judge also ordered Pena to appear in court later.

Both suspects are placed under ICE holds. So even if they were able to post bond, they can’t go anywhere.

UPDATE: Booking photos of Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Pena, 26, now charged with capital murder in the death of 12-yr-old Jocelyn Nungaray on June 17.

More info at: https://t.co/p4IMEWpTaI#HouNews https://t.co/e701fBDHdl pic.twitter.com/2a3yELHMKf

— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) June 21, 2024

#NEW: The 2 suspects were caught by border patrol weeks before they’re accused of murdering a 12-year-old. According to ICE on March 14, Martinez was apprehended by Border Patrol near El Paso. That same day he was released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear https://t.co/cyfktxzxgB

— Brooke Taylor (@Brooketaylortv) June 21, 2024

Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, reported to prison on Monday to begin a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.

Bannon entered the federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut, around 12:00 p.m., NBC News reported.

In July 2022, a Washington, D.C., federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to provide testimony and records to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Bannon’s sentence was stayed pending an appeal. But after a federal appeals court panel upheld Bannon’s conviction in May, a federal judge in early June ordered him to report to jail by July 1.

Bannon had argued that he was not guilty of contempt because his lawyers advised him to not comply with the congressional subpoena based on the chance his testimony might be covered by executive privilege — a defense the appeals court rejected.

His last-ditch effort to avoid jail time while he appealed his conviction was rejected by the Supreme Court on Friday, when the justices released a one-sentence order denying Bannon’s request.

Bannon was greeted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and a mixed crowd of supporters and protesters when he arrived at a press conference across the street from the federal correctional institution in Danbury.

He told reporters he was “proud to go to prison” and had “no regrets,” shortly before reporting to begin his sentence.

Bannon, who served as chief strategist in the Trump White House until August 2017, is the second former Trump official to be jailed for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.

Former Trump advisor Peter Navarro was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2022 for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoena. He is currently completing a four-month sentence in a federal prison in Miami, the Supreme Court having denied a similar appeal from him in April.

In an interview with NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard this weekend, Bannon repeated his arguments that the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas “don’t mean anything,” and discussed his upcoming time behind bars.

“Part of my day will be doing what I have to do in prison to make sure I meet the rules and regulations,” he said, “and the other time, I’ll be 100% working to make sure President Trump is reelected.”

Bannon told NBC News that he is set to be released from jail on Oct. 31 — five days before Election Day.

The Supreme Court declined to rule Monday on challenges to laws out of Florida and Texas that curtail content regulation by social media giants, a rule meant to protect conservative voices on major platforms like Facebook and X.

In a unanimous decision for the combined NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice cases authored by liberal Justice Elana Kagan, the high court concluded that neither of the lower courts which considered the laws “conducted a proper analysis of the facial First Amendment challenges.”

Florida and Texas drafted laws regulating social media companies’ moderation policies after former President Donald Trump was kicked off Facebook and X, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. He has since been allowed back on both platforms.

Both plaintiffs and defendants had sought to claim the mantle of free speech in the case, in which NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenged the state laws.

One federal appeals court struck down Florida’s statute, while another upheld the Texas law, both of which were on hold while the Supreme Court considered the case and will remain unenforced following Monday’s ruling.

“These are facial challenges, and that matters. To succeed on its First Amendment claim, NetChoice must show that the law at issue (whether from Texas or from Florida) ‘prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech relative to its plainly legitimate sweep,’” Kagan wrote.

“None of the parties below focused on that issue, nor did the Fifth or Eleventh Circuits.”

Kagan contended that the lower courts did not assess the First Amendment elements correctly and reserved particular criticism for the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which took the Texas case, chiding that it demonstrated a “serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle.”

“The proper analysis begins with an assessment of the state laws’ scope. The laws appear to apply beyond Facebook’s News Feed and its ilk. But it’s not clear to what extent, if at all, they affect social-media giants’ other services, like direct messaging, or what they have to say about other platforms and functions,” she wrote.

Both Texas and Florida contended that social media companies were effectively public utilities, and therefore, required to be content-neutral with their moderation.

Florida’s law specifically blocked companies from permanently banning individuals and Texas’ law directly stopped platforms from taking down content based on a user’s views.

NetChoice countered that as private companies, the social media platforms had their own rights to free speech and could adjust moderation policy to their liking, similar to newspapers.

The Biden administration backed the NetChoice and CCIA challenge.

In her opinion, Kagan also dropped some hints about the direction she might take after the lower courts rule on the First Amendment questions.

“To the extent that social media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendment’s protection. And although these cases are here in a preliminary posture, the current record suggests that some platforms, in at least some functions, are indeed engaged in expression,” she wrote.

“…The point is just that Texas’s law profoundly alters the platforms’ choices about the views they will, and will not, convey. And we have time and again held that type of regulation to interfere with protected speech,” she later added.

During oral arguments back in February, justices on the high court sounded torn over the case.

Last month, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge against the Biden administration alleging that it colluded with Big Tech companies to stifle free speech, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That decision was based on the high court’s finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing in the matter. It did not rule on the merits of the case.

Police appeared to opt out of taking action as San Francisco’s Pride march attendees openly performed oral sex on each other and engaged in disturbing sexual acts, including urinating on one another, during Sunday’s pride parade, social media video shows.

One attendee laid down in an inflatable pool in a designated area called “The Fetish Zone” and let a woman pee on him. Another man wearing only a dog collar and a small cloth around his genitals stood in the pool and clapped, video that reporter Savanah Hernandez posted to Twitter shows.

“The Fetish Zone” was designated as an 18+ zone but parade officials were allegedly not checking IDs, according to Hernandez.

San Francisco PRIDE- A man lies in an inflatable pool of urine in The Fetish Zone where attendees are encouraged to pee on him. pic.twitter.com/f8dMdfeVCn

— 🔥⭐️Edwin⭐️🔥 (@Nuked4Every1) July 1, 2024

Another nude man appeared to stand with his genitals hanging out while children walked by during the parade, video TENET Media’s Tayler Hansen posted to Twitter shows.

TENET Reporter @TaylerUSA confronts a man who was nude in front of countless kids and was continuously waving at them throughout the San Francisco Pride Parade.

He continued to say the kids “just happened to be there” and “as long as you’re not doing anything sexual there’s… pic.twitter.com/GC2tmQlYny

— TENET Media (@watchTENETnow) June 30, 2024

“Oh it’s legal here,” the man told Hansen when he confronted him about it. “A lot of people are doing it.”

Hansen pointed out the man was right next to a child while nude.

Another video from TENET appears to show a man urinating into another man’s mouth in “The Fetish Zone.”

There were children marching in the parade from multiple groups, including the Boy Scouts, according to TENET Media.

Multiple School Districts and Boy Scouts Of America March in San Francisco Pride right past a nude man.

Multiple children look directly at him and he waves at them. pic.twitter.com/uVJJjN0lZU

— TENET Media (@watchTENETnow) June 30, 2024

Hansen asked members of San Francisco Police who were stationed at the event about the legality of the lewd behavior.

“Right across the fence you have a zone where people are giving each other blow jobs in public and pissing on each other in public. Is that legal?” Hansen asked.

The police said the event was technically not public despite the fact that it was taking place on a public street.

“It’s a pick your battle day. They want us to maintain civility on the outskirts of it,” one of the officers told him.

As expected, Le Pen’s conservative (or in the world’s of the liberal media, “Far Right”) National Rally (RN) party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on several days of horsetrading before next week’s run-off.

The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed. That was ahead of both far-left and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron’s Together alliance, whose bloc was seen winning a paltry 20.5%-23%, a far cry from his crushing victory several years ago. The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled left-wing coalition, was projected to win around 29% of the vote, the exit polls showed.

The exit polls were in line with opinion polls ahead of the election, but provided little clarity on whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN will be able to form a government to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron after next Sunday’s run-off.

The RN’s chances of winning power next week will depend on the political dealmaking made by its rivals over the coming days. In the past, centre-right and centre-left parties have teamed up to keep the RN from power, but that dynamic, known as the “republican front,” is less certain than ever.

If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the top two contenders automatically qualify for the second round, as well as all those with 12.5% of registered voters. In the run-off, whoever wins the most votes take the constituency.

According to Reuters, the high turnout on Sunday suggests France is heading for a record number of three-way run-offs. These generally benefit the RN much more than two-way contests, experts say.

Sure enough, the horsetrading began almost immediately on Sunday night. In a written statement to the press, Macron called on voters to rally behind candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic”, which, based on his recent declarations, would exclude candidates from the RN and from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party.

The problem, of course, is that Macron’s party was crushed in the recent European parliamentary elections precisely because the people have had enough with “clearly republican and democratic” puppets of the World Economic Forum and want actual change.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said the second-placed NFP alliance will withdraw all its candidates who came third in the first round.”Our guideline is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally,” he said. It is, however, unlikely that many will care what the French socialists want: after all, last week the French socialist leftist alliance said it would raise the top marginal income tax rate to 90% if it were to take over the government.

Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old RN party president, said he was ready to be prime minister – if his party wins an absolute majority. That’s right, a 28 year old kid may soon be a prime minister of the 2nd largest European economy. He has ruled out trying to form a minority government and neither Macron nor the NFP will form an alliance with him.

“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.

While the RN is seen winning the most seats in the National Assembly, only one of the pollsters – Elabe – had the party winning an absolute majority of 289 seats in the run-off. Experts say that seat projections after first-round votes can be highly inaccurate, and especially so in this election.

Voter participation was high compared with previous parliamentary elections, illustrating the political fervour Macron aroused with his stunning decision to call a parliamentary vote after the RN trounced his party in European Parliament elections earlier this month.

His decision plunged France into political uncertainty, sent shockwaves around Europe and prompted a sell-off of French assets on financial markets.

A longtime pariah, the RN is now closer to power than it has ever been. Le Pen has sought to clean up the image of a party known for racism and antisemitism, a tactic that has worked amid voter anger at Macron, the high cost of living and growing concerns over immigration.

At 1500 GMT, turnout was nearly 60%, compared with 39.42% two years ago – the highest comparable turnout figures since the 1986 legislative vote, Ipsos France’s research director Mathieu Gallard said.

In short, the people have had enough and they finally want to be heard.

President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said on Sunday, NYT reported.

Mr. Biden huddled with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David while he tried to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety. While his relatives are acutely aware of how poorly he did against former President Donald J. Trump, they argued that he could still show the country that he is capable of serving for another four years.

Mr. Biden has also been soliciting ideas from advisers about how to proceed, and his staff has been discussing whether he should hold a news conference or sit for interviews to defend himself to change the narrative, but nothing has been decided yet.

One of the strongest voices imploring Mr. Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, said one of the people informed about the discussions, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father that he knows — scrappy and in command of the facts — rather than the stumbling, aging president Americans saw on Thursday night.

Other family members were trying to figure out how they could be helpful. At least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in getting more involved with the campaign, perhaps by talking with influencers on social media, according to the informed person.

The anger among Democrats was made evident on Sunday when John Morgan, a top Democratic donor, publicly blamed the advisers who managed the president’s debate preparations, citing by name Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.

“Biden has for too long been fooled by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband,” Mr. Morgan wrote on social media. “They need to go … TODAY. The grifting is gross. It was political malpractice.”

He elaborated in a subsequent interview. “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight,’” he said. “I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Members of Mr. Biden’s family were likewise said to be focused on the president’s staff, including Ms. Dunn, a White House senior adviser, and her husband, Mr. Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, who played Mr. Trump during debate rehearsals.

They were asking why Mr. Klain, the former White House chief of staff who ran the preparations, would in their view allow him to be overloaded with
statistics, and they were angry that Mr. Biden, who arrived for the debate in Atlanta with a summer tan, was made up to look pale and pallid, said one of the people, who has been in touch with several members of the family.

But the person said that the president himself was not among those who were upset and that he still trusted Mr. Klain, Ms. Dunn, Mr. Bauer and the others. Other Democrats said it was unfair to blame the staff for the president’s own failings, dismissing what they called typical second-guessing and scapegoating. A couple of Democrats pointed out that family members did not attend the preparation sessions.

After Joe Biden’s horrendous debate performance, current and former aides are saying the quiet part out loud and revealing what the President is like behind the scenes.

The White House and campaign blame a ‘cold’ for Biden’s low and, at times, hard-to-understand speaking voice. Others say this is what the President is like on a day-to-day basis now.

Former White House deputy director of photography Chandler West wrote in an Instagram story: ‘It’s time for Joe to go.’

‘I know many of these people and how the White House operates,’ West added. ‘They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago.’

Biden’s campaign tried to brush-off the issue and claimed the car crash performance was merely a ‘slow start.’

Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed in a tense post-debate interview on what Biden is like every day.

‘The person we saw tonight, the president we saw tonight on that stage: Is that how he is every day?’ CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Harris.

‘The Joe Biden that I work with every day is someone who, as I have said, has performed in a way that has been about bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to compromise in a way that is extraordinary these days, because it just doesn’t happen, but Joe Biden can make it happen,’ she replied, completely avoiding the essence of the question.

West, who was in his position at the White House from January 2021 to May 2022, told Axios: ‘The debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last.’

Reporters have complained for years about access to the president and claim wranglers are working to keep him with as little off-script time with the press as possible.

Speculation is swirling that those closest to the President, mainly First Lady Jill Biden, were shielding him since he took office – especially after his limitations were on full display at the debate on Thursday night.

A former White House residence official told Axios Jill was ‘so protective of the president’ and the first lady’s top aide Anthony Bernal ‘just protects her, and they often wouldn’t let us do anything for them.’

‘The separation between the family and the residence staff was so big, so divided,’ the former official added. ‘It’s not supposed to be and usually isn’t, even in the Trump White House.’

Since the first few months in office, residence staff felt that Biden’s closest allies were trying to keep anything about his health on the down low.

For example, during a very hot independence day celebration on the South Lawn on July 4, 2021, Biden went back into the White House where the door was abruptly shut behind him so butlers and other residence staff were blocked from aiding the President.

Aides suggested Biden was overheated, but it raised suspicion among staff and a consensus that they were creating a barrier around health-related issues.

A poll released Sunday reveals 72 percent of voters don’t think Biden has the cognitive faculties for another term in office. This is a seven percent increase from the same poll taken earlier in June before the debate.

Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has repeatedly brought Biden’s cognitive and physical health into question.

He suggested that debate prep for seven days at Camp David was a way to get the drug cocktail just right before the showdown with Trump.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended President Biden on Sunday during an interview on CNN after the presidential debate, and suggested former President Trump has “dementia.”

CNN host Dana Bash asked Pelosi if there was any part of her that believed Biden should step aside.

“My people are very much Biden-Kamala Harris and this is an opportunity for Joe Biden to go out there and show he has the stamina,” she responded. “And by the way, while the press and for some reason they don‘t – there are health care professionals who think that Trump has dementia, that his connection, his thoughts do not go together. Not only that he just lies, he doesn‘t even know the truth, so if we‘re just talking about mental acuity, let’s be fair about it.”

Pelosi said lawmakers see Biden “up close,” and insisted he was well aware of the issues facing Americans.

“We know how attuned he is to the issues, we know how informed he is. I debate with him about the issues, not debate, but discuss it with him. He‘s right there. So, in any case, it was a bad night. Let’s not sugarcoat that. It was a bad night. It was a great presidency. And that’s what the American people have to choose,” Pelosi continued.

After Pelosi praised Biden and listed several of his accomplishments, Bash told the Democratic lawmaker she made “the argument for Joe Biden‘s reelection in a way that he did not.”

Bash asked if there was a mechanism that would work if Biden wanted to step aside.

“There’s nothing as well, as just as Joe Biden getting up and taking the ball over the finish line. Something else could be chaotic,” Pelosi responded.

“I don‘t say that to say that could never happen because it might, I don’t mean now. I mean, in history it could. But understand this, this is really important for people to understand. Joe Biden has won the nomination. He has won the nomination,” Pelosi said.

Bash pushed back and said he didn’t officially have the nomination yet.

“The roll-call has been happening around the country, because of the timing of the election. It’s a very different year,” Pelosi countered.

Tom Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times and a friend to Biden, called on the former president to drop out, saying the debate made him “weep.”

“If he insists on running, and he loses to Trump, Biden and his family — and his staff and party members who enabled him — will not be able to show their faces,” he wrote.