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Nawaz Sharif: Pakistan's Top Court Ousts Prime Minister | Time.com Pakistan’s top court disqualified the country’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office on Friday, with a bench of five judges unanimously ruling against him  in a corruption case  that has divided the South Asian nation. The Supreme Court in Islamabad disqualified Sharif in a case connected to allegations stemming from the so-called  Panama Papers  — secret documents leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2016 that detailed the offshore financial dealings of public figures from around the world. “He is no more eligible to be an honest member of the parliament, and he ceases to be holding the office of prime minister,” Supreme Court Judge Ejaz Afzal said in court,  according  to the Reuters news agency. Sharif — who, if he had remained in office until next year’s general elections, would have been the first prime minister in Pakistan’s history to complete a full term — fo...

Russia Orders Cut in U.S. Diplomats in Response to Sanctions | Time.com (MOSCOW) — Russia's Foreign Ministry has ordered a reduction in the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia and said it was closing down a U.S. recreation retreat in response to  fresh sanctions  against Russia. The Senate on Friday approved a new package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea and sent it to President Donald Trump to sign. The legislation  bars Trump from  easing or waiving the penalties on Russia unless Congress agrees. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that in response it has ordered the U.S. Embassy in Russia to reduce the number of its diplomats by Sept. 1. Russia will also close down the embassy's recreational retreat on the outskirts of Moscow as well as warehouse facilities.

Outer Banks Evacuation: Outage Forces 10,000 Tourists Out | Time.com An estimated 10,000 tourists face a noon deadline Friday for evacuating an island on North Carolina's Outer Banks after a construction company caused a power outage, leaving people searching for a place to eat, stay cool or to resume interrupted vacations. The Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative said in a news release Thursday that PCL Construction told the utility it had driven a steel casing into an electric transmission cable while working on the new Bonner Bridge on the state's coast, inadvertently cutting off power to Ocracoke and Hatteras islands. Officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for all visitors on Ocracoke Island effective at 5 p.m. Thursday. Hyde County public information officer Donnie Shumate said the main concern was for their safety, adding that officials want to get visitors off the island by noon Friday.

Silent Parade, East Saint Louis Riots and Civil Rights | Time.com When many Americans think of the birth of the civil-rights movement, they may think of event in the  mid-1960s  or  just before  that decade. But in fact, one of the earliest headline-grabbing demonstrations for civil rights took place a century ago this Friday. The story had begun weeks earlier, when two plainclothes detectives in an unmarked Model T in  East St. Louis , Ill., were shot by black citizens. In the aftermath, on July 2, 1917, a mob of white residents went after African Americans in the city, resulting in the deaths of at least 48 residents — 38 of them black men, women and children — and injury to hundreds more, as people were clubbed and pulled off streetcars. Buildings were set on fire, racking up $373,000 in damages (which would be almost $7 million in 2016) by some counts. As it turned out, the people who shot at the undercover cops had mistaken their car for one of the many M...

Google Doodle Commemorates 100 Anniversary of Silent Parade | Time.com Today's  Google Doodle  is commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Silent Parade, a demonstration on July 28, 1917, where nearly 10,000 people marched in silence down New York's Fifth Avenue to Madison Square protesting about African-American rights in the U.S.. The demonstration was one of America's first mass protests of lynching and other anti-black violence and was led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), including leaders James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B Du Bois.

What Is The Silent Parade Of 1917 Google Doodle Known as the Silent Parade of 1917, the march began at 59th Street and ended at 23rd Street — with children at the front, women wearing white in the middle, and men in the back. According to the  National Humanities Center , a flyer that was handed out before the march cited lynchings in Memphis and Waco, Texas, as well as the East St. Louis race riot of 1917. Banners in the Silent Parade had powerful words of protest, such as, "We helped to plant the flag in every American dominion," "We are maligned as lazy, and murdered when we work," and "Thou shalt not kill." In  a flyer distributed by the NCAAP ahead of the Silent Parade , Reverend Chas. D. Martin detailed the need for action: "We march because we want our children to live in a better land and enjoy fairer conditions than have fallen to our lot. We march in memory of our butchered dead, the massacre of the honest toilers who were removing the rep...

A silent protest parade in 1917 set the stage for civil rights marches | Miami Herald The only sounds were those of muffled drums, the shuffling of feet and the gentle sobs of some of the estimated 20,000 onlookers. The women and children wore all white. The men dressed in black. On the afternoon of Saturday, July 28, 1917, nearly 10,000 African-Americans marched down Fifth Avenue, in silence, to protest racial violence and white supremacy in the United States. New York City, and the nation, had never before witnessed such a remarkable scene. The “Silent Protest Parade,” as it came to be known, was the first mass African-American demonstration of its kind and marked a watershed moment in the history of the civil rights movement.

How Trump got it wrong in saying The New York Times ‘foiled’ killing of Islamic State leader | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wrongly tweeted on Saturday that The New York Times had “foiled” an attempt by the United States military to kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. “The Failing New York Times foiled U.S. attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist, al-Baghdadi,” the president wrote. “Their sick agenda over National Security.” Mr. Trump’s statement appeared to be based on a report by Fox News; he is known to be an avid viewer, and a version of the story was broadcast about 25 minutes before he posted. The report said that The Times had disclosed intelligence in an article on June 8, 2015, about an American military raid in Syria that led to death of one of Mr. Baghdadi’s key lieutenants, Abu Sayyaf, and the capture of his wife, who played an important role in the group. That Fox News report cited comments by Gen. Tony Thoma...

Poland’s long march toward democracy is threatened by quick steps away from it - The Washington Post WARSAW —  The Polish Parliament’s move on Saturday to subvert judicial independence has opened a searing debate about whether a nation once held up as a paragon of post-communist democracy has slid back into a darker era. The Senate’s 55-23 vote on the  measure , which is widely expected to be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda, capped a 20-month procession by the right-wing ruling Law and Justice party to bring Poland’s independent institutions under its control. The swift offensive has left leaders who toppled communist rule in 1989 to question whether they succeeded in embedding democratic norms in a state that was under Soviet domination for decades.  Lech Walesa, a former Polish president and leader of Solidarity, the labor union that helped precipitate communism’s fall across Europe, called Saturday for a mass effort to reengage citizens about the import...

Israeli troops deploy across East Jerusalem and West Bank after violence over holy site - The Washington Post JERUSALEM —  Israeli forces fanned out across East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Saturday, carrying out raids and arrests a day after three Palestinians were killed in violent protests and after three Israeli settlers were knifed to death in their kitchen during a birthday celebration. Israeli soldiers blocked access to the village of Khobar in the West Bank, home to the 19-year-old Palestinian assailant who hopped the fence surrounding the Jewish settlement of Halamish on Friday night and  stabbed to death  three Israelis — a father and his two adult children — who had gathered for the Sabbath meal.  Israeli officials blamed the killings on Palestinian incitement. “It is a terrorist act committed by a human animal, infused with abhorrent hatred,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinians in turn said it was Netanyahu who was acting recklessly. I...

Venezuela Needs Negotiation to Avoid Civil War, Not Trump-Supported "Regime Change" | By Mark Weisbrot | Common Dreams Today, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., openly threatens governments in the region, including those of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Haiti, with punishment if they do not cooperate with Washington's abuse of the Organization of American States to delegitimize the government of Venezuela. And the administration of President Donald Trump is threatening more economic sanctions against Venezuela, which will only worsen shortages of food and medicine there. Deeper involvement is dangerous. Venezuela, after all, remains a divided country. President Nicolas Maduro's approval rating has been about 21 percent over the past year, but other numbers show things aren't so simple. A recent poll from a widely cited pro-opposition pollster, Datanalisis, shows 51 percent supporting the current ongoing protests, with 44 percent against. Some 55 percent continue...

Rebuilding Mosul: The daunting mission to bring the demolished city back from the dead - LA Times Thousands of buildings have been reduced to rubble, more than 120 miles of roadways have been damaged, and the city’s airport, railway station and at least one university are wrecked. As the militants retreated after 2½ years of occupation, they intentionally targeted infrastructure, demolishing vital bridges, attacking the water and sewage systems and tearing down electricity lines. They also laced neighborhoods with booby traps and homemade bombs. “The destruction is massive,” said  Saroj Kumar Jha,  who oversees Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon for the  World Bank . “It will be a very big reconstruction effort.”

Tens of thousands march over corruption in Dominican Republic Demonstrators, mostly young and dressed in the green color of the country's environmental movement, overflowed across a six-lane thoroughfare in Santo Domingo, waving the red, blue and white Dominican flag as they chanted demands for the president and other top officials to resign. The protest was the biggest of seven demonstrations since January that followed an investigation revealing executives from Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht paid $92 million in bribes to officials from the poor country that shares a Caribbean island with the even more impoverished Haiti. "The people have no legal recourse, we have no one to represent us. But the government can't repress them," said businessman Ivan Veloz Cabral, a 69-year-old owner of a small sportswear factory. Odebrecht has paid $184 million in damages related to the bribery charges and 14 top officials and businessmen have been indicted in the case tha...

John McCain diagnosed with brain tumor - Chicago Tribune The 80-year-old Republican has glioblastoma, an aggressive  cancer , according to doctors at the  Mayo Clinic  in Phoenix. The senator and his family are reviewing further treatment, including a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. "On Friday, July 14, Sen. John McCain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma was associated with the blood clot," his office said in a statement. About 20,000 people in the U.S. each year are diagnosed with a glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive type of brain tumor. The American Cancer Society puts the five-year survival rate for patients over 55 at about 4 percent.

Jeff Sessions Removes Restrictions on Controversial Police Seizures - NBC News Attorney General Jeff Sessions just made it easier for police to seize cash and property from people suspected ─ but not necessarily charged with or convicted ─ of crimes. He did it by eliminating an Obama administration directive that prevented local law enforcement from circumventing state restrictions on forfeiture of civil assets. The technique was embraced in the early years of the war on drugs, but it has since been linked to civil rights abuses: people losing cash, cars and homes without any proven link to illegal activity; police taking cash in exchange for not locking suspects up; a legal system that makes it hard for victims to get their possessions back. Two dozen states have made it harder for authorities to take property from suspects without first securing criminal convictions. Three have outlawed it entirely,  according to the Institute for Justice , a nonprofit that advocates for reform...

Trump promises GOP healthcare bill will 'get even better at lunchtime,' while Democrats 'scream death' as Obamacare 'dies' - AOL News   The BCRA collapsed Monday as moderates and conservatives said they would oppose the bill, leaving it without enough support to pass.

Biden: GOP Health Bill Will Make Americans 'Start Worrying Again' "They want to drag us back to a time — not all that long ago — when Americans could be denied basic healthcare because they were unable to afford it," Biden wrote. He said that a healthcare system should not be built around emergency room visits because "that's not a sustainable model, and we're better than that." The former vice president noted that the original Senate bill contained $2 billion to cover mental health and substance abuse, which he called a "drop in the bucket." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell increased that number to $45 billion, but Biden said he is "missing the point." The Senate bill cannot be fixed before it gets to a vote, Biden said, and "by denying that all Americans have a right to healthcare, it's fundamentally flawed."

California fires spread quickly, evacuation orders lifted in other parts of West - CBS News Excessive heat sent Southern Californians flocking to beaches and in search of water, shade and air conditioning to escape the heat. Forecasters warned that triple-digit temperatures up to 110 degrees would be common in some inland areas and could be deadly for the elderly, children and outdoor workers. Air quality reached unhealthy and very unhealthy in areas inland from Los Angeles.  Brutally hot temperatures have been recorded across the Southwest, CBS News' Chris Martinez reported. Phoenix hit a high of 118 degrees Friday, breaking a 112-year record. Palm Springs, California, reached 122 degrees, one of its hottest days ever. And in Death Valley, the mercury soared to 127. "We are going to see an increase in calls during this peak heat," said Los Angeles Fire Captain Erik Scott.  Scott said many people ignore the very real risks of spending too much time outdoors. And even fo...

North Korea Calls U.S. Missiles 'Provocation' | Time.com (SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korean state media have sharply criticized a recent practice bombing run by two U.S. B-1B bombers on the Korean peninsula, calling it a dangerous move raising the risk of nuclear war. A commentary Sunday in the ruling party's Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused the U.S. of "reckless military provocations" and said the danger of nuclear war is reaching an extreme pitch. The commentary was reported on in English by the state Korean Central News Agency. Two U.S. Air Force bombers released inert weapons Friday on a training range in South Korea. South Korean F-15 and U.S. F-16 fighter jets joined them in the drill. The bombers also flew with Japanese F-2 fighter jets over the East China Sea on their way back to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The 10-hour mission came three days after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on Fourth of July, America's Independence...

Iraqi Prime Minister Arrives in Mosul to Declare Victory Over ISIS - The New York Times MOSUL, Iraq — Dressed in a military uniform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived here in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate Iraq’s armed forces on their victory over the Islamic State and mark the formal end of a bloody campaign that lasted nearly nine months, left much of Iraq’s second-largest city in ruins, killed thousands of people and displaced nearly a million more. While there were reports that troops were still mopping up the last pockets of resistance and Iraqi forces could be facing suicide bombers and guerrilla attacks for weeks, the military began to savor its win in the shattered alleyways of the old city, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, put up a fierce last stand. Hanging over the declaration of victory is the reality of  the hard road ahead . The security forces in Mosul still face dangers, including ISIS sleeper cells and suicide bombers. And they must clea...

‘Time to Move Forward,’ Trump Says After Putin Denies Election Hacking - The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday said he had “strongly pressed” President  Vladimir V. Putin  of Russia about election meddling during their first face-to-face meeting last week but did not dispute Moscow’s claim that he had accepted Mr. Putin’s denial of involvement, as he declared it “time to move forward” in a constructive United States relationship with Russia. Mr. Trump’s account of his lengthy and closely scrutinized closed-door meeting with Mr. Putin, which came in a thread of morning Twitter posts, was his attempt to move beyond the controversy that has followed the session after Moscow characterized the election discussion as a meeting of the minds rather than a showdown between the American president and his Russian counterpart. Mr. Trump’s tweets did little to dispel that notion, as he characterized his own position as an “opinion” and asserted that he was prepared to ...

North Korea missile launch marks a direct challenge to Trump administration - The Washington Post North Korea’s test launch Tuesday of what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile marks a direct challenge to President Trump, whose tough talk has yet to yield any change in Pyongyang’s behavior as the regime continues its efforts to build a nuclear weapon capable of striking the mainland United States. The latest missile flew higher and remained in the air longer than previous attempts — enough to reach all of Alaska, experts said, in a major milestone for North Korea’s weapons program. The test comes just before Trump will see key Asian leaders and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin later this week. North Korea was already expected to be a main subject for meetings on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit, but the test adds urgency to a widening U.S. campaign aimed at further isolating North Korea.