House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans push to ‘expunge’ Trump impeachments
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning to push to “expunge” former President Donald Trump’s two impeachments even though such a move would have no practical effect and it’s not clear he has the votes to pass it.
McCarthy reportedly promised Trump he will force votes on the measure before Congress breaks for its August recess next week as a way of giving a political boost to the ex-president as he braces for a second federal indictment in the Jan. 6 probe.
Trump, who is running for a second term in the White House, is leaning hard on McCarthy to take action quickly. But McCarthy is trying to wriggle off the hook out of fear the move will flop, causing a major political embarrassment for him, Politico reported Thursday.
“If (expungement) goes to the floor and fails — which it probably will ... it will show disunity among Republican ranks,” a senior GOP lawmaker told the site. “It’s a huge strategic risk.”
—New York Daily News
Barack Obama appears in library TikTok video to put focus on book bans
Former President Barack Obama turned to the Kankakee, Illinois, librarians when he kicked off an effort to push back against book bans earlier this week to support their belief that among their library’s 80,000 books, there’s something for each reader.
“We provide books for everybody on every topic,” said Mary Bass, the Kankakee Public Library’s youth services supervisor. “That’s what libraries stand for. It’s not just one particular worldview. We are here for everyone, and we want them to see that there’s space for you.”
The library’s staff joined the former president in a TikTok video Monday highlighting several books that have faced scattered calls for censorship on the shelves of schools and libraries across the country.
In the video, the librarians posed with books including Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby” and Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give” before Obama appeared reading a copy.
—Chicago Tribune
Have you seen these giant piles of rocks at Yosemite? Rangers say knock 'em down
If you've been feeling like you want to knock over giant piles of rocks, then Yosemite National Park might be your playground.
The park posted a video on Facebook earlier this month instructing visitors to stop building large rock towers, called cairns, and dismantle any they find. In the video, a wilderness restoration ranger gently shoves over a cairn, which appears to be several feet high.
"This dramatically oversized cairn is a mark of human impact and is distracting in a wilderness setting," the post read. "Building rock cairns also disturbs small insects, reptiles, and microorganisms that call the underside home!"
Constructing such towers goes against Leave No Trace ethics, a set of seven principles designed to educate members of the public on minimizing their impact on outdoor spaces and that the National Park Service advises its visitors to follow.
—Los Angeles Times
Modi breaks months of silence as violent video sparks anger
A video of two women being paraded naked by a group of men in Manipur has elicited the first public comments from Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding ethnic violence that has engulfed the relatively remote Indian state.
“The incident of Manipur is a shame for any civilized society,” Modi told reporters before the start of the latest parliament session on Thursday. “I assure the nation: The guilty won’t be spared. The law will take its course with all its might. What happened with the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven.”
The horrific video — of an incident that took place on May 4 — went viral on social media overnight, triggering public anger.
India’s Supreme Court called the video “deeply disturbing.” The judges asked the federal and state governments — which are both led by Modi’s party — to report steps taken against the perpetrators at a hearing scheduled for July 28.
—Bloomberg News
