The Guardian reports: MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland, a plan the government has said it will honour despite ministerial doubts. The Commons voted 383 to 73 to pass the amendment to a largely technical bill on the stalled Northern Ireland assembly, tabled by the Labour MP Conor McGinn [photo], a longstanding campaigner for equal …

CBS News reports: President Trump is meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani at the White House Tuesday, after dining with him Monday night. The meeting with the Qatari emir comes amid scrutiny of the president and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta for their past interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, who has been arrested for sex trafficking of minors. Acosta …

Axios reports: Israel’s newly appointed minister of education, Rafi Peretz, said at a cabinet meeting on July 1 that the rate of intermarriage among U.S. Jews is “like a second Holocaust,” according to three people who were in the room. Peretz, a former chief rabbi of the Israeli army, is the leader of a bloc of ultra right-wing religious parties. …

Mediaite reports: Alan Dershowitz is speaking out for the first time since Jeffrey Epstein‘s indictment. The legal scholar — who was reportedly ticketed to appear on Hannity Monday night, but was not seen — broke his silence Tuesday morning on local radio in New York. Speaking with host Joe Piscopo, Dershowitz highlighted his top-line takeaway from the Epstein indictment. Dershowitz …

Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff on MSNBC today: This was one of the more insidious conspiracy theories that arose out of the 2016 election. It had so much traction. It was promoted on alt-right websites, Roger Stone, Alex Jones, all the usual crowd, and, you know, eventually makes its way straight to Fox News and Sean Hannity. But what we …

The Dallas Morning News reports: Ross Perot, self-made billionaire, renowned patriot and two-time independent candidate for U.S. president, has died after a five-month battle with leukemia. He was 89. Many Americans knew Perot because of his two third-party runs at the presidency in 1992 and 1996. They knew his high-pitched twang thanks to Dana Carvey skits on Saturday Night Live. …

Reuters reports: A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2018 lower court ruling that said President Donald Trump could not block people from following him on Twitter. The court found that the First Amendment does not permit Trump “to exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialog because they expressed views with which” he disagreed. The White House, Justice Department …

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports: Former Marine Corps fighter pilot Amy McGrath announced Tuesday that she wants to challenge U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November 2020, ending months of speculation about whether she’d try to take out one of the most powerful political figures in the country. In a three-minute video on social media and on the MSNBC show …

NBC News reports: Billionaire activist Tom Steyer declared his candidacy for the presidency on Tuesday in a video, reversing an earlier announcement several months ago that he intended to sit out the 2020 Democratic primary race. While he is not well known and the candidate field is already overstuffed with two dozen candidates, Steyer’s money could give him an edge, …

Common Dreams reports: On the heels of the EPA’s June approval of a bee-killing pesticide, the White House said it would stop collecting data on declining honey bee populations—potentially making it impossible to analyze the effects of the chemical and the administration’s other anti-science policies on the pollinators. The USDA cited budget cuts when it said Saturday that it would …

CBS News Minneapolis reports: The St. Louis Park City Council is revisiting its decision to remove the Pledge of Allegiance from its meetings. Five council members voted to drop the pledge last month. Since then, people across the community and country have responded. Public input was not supposed to be part of Monday evening’s session, but as the mayor and …

The Washington Post reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday night became the highest-profile lawmaker to call for the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, citing his handling as a U.S. attorney of an earlier case against Jeffrey Epstein that resulted in a minimal sentence. Pelosi’s call for Acosta to “step down” followed Monday’s indictment of the billionaire financier …

Trump likely just saw this Fox News report: Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday issued a statement of support to Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. after President Trump cut off contact with him amid the leak of diplomatic cables. May backed ambassador Kim Darroch amid the controversy over leaked diplomatic cables in which he disparaged Trump, including calling him …

“You don’t have to have any forest fires. It’s interesting. I spoke to certain countries, and they said, ‘Sir, we’re a forest nation.’ I never thought of a country — well-known countries; ‘we’re a forest nation.’ I never heard of the term ‘forest nation.’ They live in forests. And they don’t have problems. Remember, management. “It’s called forest management. So …

Earlier this year Miriam Adelson, the wife of billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, was awarded the President Medal of Freedom by Trump. Miriam received the nation’s highest civilian honor after she and her husband donated $500,000 to a legal defense fund for Trump associates. From her column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: By rights, Trump should enjoy …

“If you look at the World Cup men’s revenue, it’s in the billions and they split up the pot. It’s a much bigger pot. Women’s World Cup revenue, much much smaller and they have a smaller pot to divide it up with. But the distinction is, is that the U.S. Soccer Federation, the women do actually make more revenue and …

“Here’s Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib explaining that Pelosi is oppressing people of color. ‘Give us power because of our skin color’ — that’s the argument Tlaib is making. Many make that argument, Ocasio-Cortez made the very same case during her Democratic primary campaign last year. By definition, it is a racist pitch. It’s every bit as repugnant as a white candidate …

The Hill reports: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was met by an eager crowd chanting her name when she attended a drag show in New York. “You are beautiful. You are accepted,” the freshman lawmaker told the audience at Bartschland Follies, a drag and burlesque show at the McKittrick Hotel. Ocasio-Cortez appeared alongside performer Joey Arias, who shared footage of the …

The New York Times reports: It says volumes about the challenges facing brick-and-mortar stores that the “single biggest initiative” out of Kohl’s this year, according to the national retailer’s chief executive, is that it will now accept and process unwanted orders from Amazon. Kohl’s said on Monday that it was now accepting Amazon returns at its more than 1,100 stores …

USA Today reports: A spokesman for former President Bill Clinton said Monday that Clinton “knows nothing” about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes after the billionaire financier pleaded not guilty to sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan federal court. “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been …