Politics

The BBC reports: Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and ex-girlfriend of the late US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been denied bail in a high-profile sex case. At a hearing via video link, a New York judge said she would remain in custody while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors for Epstein. Ms Maxwell, who pleaded not guilty, …

The Guardian reports: Brazil’s government has fired an official at the national space agency Inpe whose department is responsible for satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest, just three days after June deforestation data reflected a continued increase in degradation. Lubia Vinhas was the general-coordinator of Brazilian space agency Inpe’s Earth Observation Institute, which is an umbrella for divisions that monitor …

The Indianapolis Star reports: After the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed Tuesday morning by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lee, the first federal inmate to be executed in 17 years, was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. His last words: “You’re killing an innocent man.” Lee, a member …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court early Tuesday ruled that the first federal executions in 17 years can be carried out. The justices ruled 5-4 hours after a U.S. District Judge preliminary blocked four inmates from being executed. Daniel Lewis Lee was originally scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital at 4 p.m. ET Monday, but …

The New York Daily News reports: Federal officials have put special protocols in place for Ghislaine Maxwell while she’s locked up, including giving her paper clothes so she doesn’t suffer the same fate as the man she allegedly enabled, Jeffrey Epstein. The feds took away Maxwell’s clothes and bedsheets once she was in custody. The measures at Metropolitan Detention Center …

NBC News reports: Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals on the heels of a newspaper photo showing him eating at a Manhattan restaurant weeks after being released from prison into home confinement. Cohen was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail. His attorney told NBC …

The Korea Herald reports: Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was found dead on Friday, according to police, in what appears to be one of the country’s highest-profile suicides in recent history. The body of Park, 64, was found at Mount Bukak, hours after he was reported missing. The exact cause of his death remained under investigation. Park’s daughter filed a police …

The Washington Post reports: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suffered a fall at a Maryland country club last month that required an overnight stay in the hospital, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night. The 65-year-old chief justice was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the June 21 incident at the Chevy Chase Club, which was serious enough …

CBS News reports: A growing number of sheriffs in Texas say they are refusing to follow a recent executive order requiring masks in public. Governor Greg Abbott’s mandate aims to slow the spread of coronavirus, as cases in the state soared past 200,000 on Tuesday. Police officials in at least nine counties — including Denton, Houston, Montgomery, Gillespie, Upshur, Kerr, …

NBC News reports: The 538 people who cast the actual votes for president in December as part of the Electoral College are not free agents and must vote as the laws of their states direct, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous decision in the “faithless elector” case was a defeat for advocates of changing the Electoral College, who …

Politico reports: Justin Trudeau is pointing to the threat of fresh U.S. tariffs and the coronavirus pandemic as reasons why he might skip a meeting in Washington next week with President Donald Trump and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador to mark the new continental trade deal. The Canadian prime minister made the comments Friday when asked by a reporter about …

Roll Call reports: Republican senators came out swinging today against a bill passed in the House last week that would make the District of Columbia the 51st state.  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, was joined by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., who noted a Gallup poll that found a majority of Americans believed Washington should not be a …

The Associated Press reports: Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. Mayor Levar Stoney’s decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam …

The Associated Press reports: President Vladimir Putin has won a resounding victory in his bid to stay in power until the middle of the next decade, as Russians voted overwhelmingly to endorse the country’s political status quo, according to preliminary results. Russians went to the polls Wednesday to cast ballots in a nationwide referendum on constitutional amendments. The vote paves …

The Insider reports: Boris Johnson has offered three million Hong Kong citizens the chance to live and work in the UK after China defied global opposition to impose a new national security law on the region. The UK prime minister on Wednesday told the House of Commons that he will go ahead with the move after China imposed new security …

Courthouse News reports: The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday that companies with “.com” in their names are eligible for federal trademark protection, even if their monikers are otherwise generic. “The appellate court also rejected the PTO’s contention that, as a rule, combining a generic term like ‘booking’ with ‘.com’ yields a generic composite,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the …

The Washington Post reports: The Supreme Court will not take up a challenge to new federal death penalty protocols proposed by the Justice Department, which wants to resume executions as early as July for the first time since 2003. The court, without comment, declined Monday to take up the lawsuit filed by four death row inmates. As is customary, it …

The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol to help detain US President Donald Trump and others it believes carried out a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, a local prosecutor reportedly says. While Trump faces no danger of arrest, the charges underscore the heightened tensions between Iran and the …

CBS News reports: The Mississippi state legislature voted on Sunday to replace its state flag, the last in the nation to display the Confederate battle emblem. The removal of the flag marks the latest Confederate symbol to topple in the weeks following George Floyd’s death. The bill passed by a vote of 91-23 in the House and 37-14 in the …

The Associated Press reports: Mississippi lawmakers could vote in the next few days to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, a symbol that has come under intensifying criticism in recent weeks amid nationwide protests against racial injustice. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said Saturday, for the first time, that he would sign a bill to change the flag …