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Donald Trump Makes Crude Joke About Arnold Palmer At Pennsylvania Rally

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Donald Trump Makes Crude Joke About Arnold Palmer At Pennsylvania Rally

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Former President Donald Trump opened a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday by talking about late golfer Arnold Palmer—and sharing a story about Palmer’s genitalia—for more than 10 minutes, marking the latest bizarre move at a rally from Trump just weeks from Election Day.

Key Facts

Within the first 12 minutes of his rally in Latrobe—which is Palmer’s hometown—Trump praised Palmer as “all man,” before he took it further, saying: “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable … We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”

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Trump also reminisced about golfing with Palmer and said the rally would be more fun if the golfer (who died in 2016) could join him, taking it further than what politicians typically say about the famous golfer when visiting his hometown, the Associated Press reported.

When Trump did turn to politics at the rally, he called his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris “a s*** vice president” and a “radical left Marxist,” and criticized her suggestion in the 2020 primaries that she would ban hydraulic fracking—though Harris has since said she does not want to ban fracking.

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Big Number

16. That’s how many days there are until Election Day, when Trump will face off against Harris in what is expected to be a highly contested race. FiveThirtyEight’s national average showed Harris with a 2-point advantage over Trump as of Sunday morning.

Key Background

Trump has been holding rallies across battleground states in recent weeks as Election Day nears, and he has continued to go off script and sometimes confuse viewers. Last Monday, Trump stopped a town hall-style event while attendees got medical help, and rather than resume it, he had his team play music for nearly a half hour as he danced on the stage. After the rally, Harris shared a clip on social media and said “Hope he’s okay.” Trump has become known for going on rants at his rallies in the past, referring to the fictional character “the late great Hannibal Lecter” when discussing immigration, talking about his indictments and having crowds chant attacks at Harris and Biden. Trump’s team had reportedly said his speech Saturday would be the start of his efforts to make closing arguments against Vice President Kamala Harris, though he mostly stuck to his regular talking points of criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the border and personal attacks on Harris. Trump’s meandering speaking style has caused some critics to raise questions about the 78-year-old’s mental acuity, which he has typically deflected.

Chief Critic

Peg Palmer, the golfer’s daughter, said in 2018 “he was appalled by Trump’s lack of civility … and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character,” according to Rolling Stone. “He didn’t like it when other people were nasty and rude.”

Further Reading

AP NewsTrump kicks off a Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia
NytimesAt a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of VulgarityForbes‘Let’s Just Listen To Music’: Trump Turns Town Hall Into Concert, Prompting Mockery From Harris

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U.S. to Withdraw 5,000 Troops From Germany, Pentagon Says

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U.S. to Withdraw 5,000 Troops From Germany, Pentagon Says

Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas.

The Defense Department is also canceling a plan developed under the Biden administration to place a missile-equipped artillery unit in Europe.

The moves will return U.S. forces in Europe to the level they were in 2022, before Russia began its war in Ukraine, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning process. Last year, the Pentagon redeployed a brigade in Romania and did not send replacement forces.

Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the withdrawal would be completed over the next six to 12 months.

“This decision follows a thorough review of the department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” he said.

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The Defense Department — particularly during both of President Trump’s terms — has for several years considered decreasing the military presence in Germany. But senior defense officials privately made it clear that they wanted the move to be seen as a punishment for Germany, whose recent comments about the U.S. war in Iran have annoyed Mr. Trump.

Earlier this week, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had “humiliated” the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.

“The Americans obviously have no strategy,” Mr. Merz said.

Mr. Trump then took to Truth Social, his social media site, to vent.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he wrote on Thursday.

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Later, he added: “The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!”

On Friday, while announcing the decision, a senior Pentagon official said that Germany’s failure to contribute to the Iran war effort had frustrated the United States, and that the country’s rhetoric was inappropriate and unhelpful.

The announcement, and the criticism of Germany, represents a shift for Pentagon officials, who recently had praised Germany’s efforts to increase military spending and take over more of the burden of supporting Ukraine.

Even if the Pentagon pulls 5,000 troops out of Germany, the country would still host the second-largest U.S. troop presence in the world, at more than 30,000, behind only Japan.

Defense officials say the United States depends on its bases in Germany to stage many of its operations in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

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The Iran war has made that clear. Many U.S. troops evacuated from bases in the Middle East that were targeted by Iran were moved to Germany. And many of the U.S. troops wounded in the war have been taken to Germany — to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base — for treatment.

The U.S. military’s Africa Command and European Command are also headquartered in Germany.

Defense officials said the reduction would not directly affect Landstuhl or other medical facilities in Germany where U.S. troops receive care.

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Court restricts abortion access across the US by blocking the mailing of mifepristone

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Court restricts abortion access across the US by blocking the mailing of mifepristone

Mifepristone tablets sit on a table at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2024.

Charlie Neibergall/AP


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Charlie Neibergall/AP

A federal appeals court has restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking the mailing of mifepristone. A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in-person at clinics. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail has become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place. The decision sets up a likely appeal to the Supreme Court.

A federal appeals court has restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking mailing of prescriptions of mifepristone.

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in person at clinics.

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“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” the ruling states.

Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration’s judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.

FDA officials under President Donald Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone’s safety, at the direction of the president.

The judges noted in their ruling that FDA “could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data.”

In a court filing, Louisiana’s attorney general and a woman who says she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person.

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A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state’s abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail have become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place.

“This is going to affect patients’ access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation,” said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer. “When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most.”

Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. It is typically used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

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Because of rare cases of excessive bleeding, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and distribute the pill — only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.

Both those requirements were dropped during the COVID-19 years. At the time, FDA officials under President Joe Biden said that after more than 20 years of monitoring mifepristone use, and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.

Friday’s ruling sets up a likely appeal to the Supreme Court.

The conservative-majority high court overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022 but unanimously preserved access to mifepristone two years later.

That 2024 decision sidestepped the core issues, however, by ruling that the anti-abortion doctors behind the case didn’t have legal standing to sue.

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Jury Convicts Florida Ex-Rep. David Rivera in Conspiracy Trial

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Jury Convicts Florida Ex-Rep. David Rivera in Conspiracy Trial

A federal jury convicted former Representative David Rivera of Florida on Friday, finding him guilty of conspiracy and six other crimes for secretly lobbying officials in Washington on behalf of the Venezuelan government in 2017 and 2018.

Prosecutors presented evidence during the five-week trial in Miami showing that Venezuela’s state-run oil company had secretly hired Mr. Rivera’s consulting firm for $50 million to lobby members of Congress and the White House for a thaw in U.S.-Venezuela relations.

The revelation ran contrary to how Mr. Rivera, a Republican, had portrayed himself in public. He made a political career, first as a state lawmaker and later as a congressman, as a strident anti-Communist. Mr. Rivera served in Congress from 2011 to 2013.

He had previously been the subject of several state and federal investigations into improper campaign dealings. He was also found guilty in the criminal case of failing to register as a foreign agent and money laundering, and faces about 10 years in prison.

His defense lawyers in the criminal case had argued that Mr. Rivera was not working for Nicolás Maduro’s government but rather surreptitiously trying to oust him. They also said that Mr. Rivera did not need to register as a foreign agent because his firm’s contract was with an American company, PDV USA, a U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, and not with the state-run company itself.

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The 12-member jury also convicted one of Mr. Rivera’s associates, Esther Nuhfer, on four charges. Prosecutors said that Mr. Rivera, 60, split the secret contract earnings, which ultimately amounted to about $20 million after the company terminated the contract, with Ms. Nuhfer and two people who were not charged in the case. Ms. Nuhfer, 52, is a political consultant based in Miami.

Roger Cruz, an assistant U.S. attorney and the lead prosecutor, said in his closing argument on Tuesday that Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer decided to keep the contract secret because of “greed.”

“Without their keeping it secret, they would not have got a single penny,” he said. “If anyone found out, their careers would be over.”

The trial drew widespread attention when it began because prosecutors called Secretary of State Marco Rubio to testify against Mr. Rivera, his longtime friend and former housemate in Tallahassee when they both served in the Florida Legislature.

Mr. Rubio, who has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, was a Republican U.S. senator from Florida in the years that Mr. Rivera was secretly lobbying for Venezuela. Mr. Rubio held two meetings with Mr. Rivera at that time and testified in court that he had no idea about Mr. Rivera’s secret contract.

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Other prosecution witnesses included Brian Ballard, a major lobbyist and top fund-raiser for President Trump, and Hugo Perera, one of the other two men who admitted to taking part in the conspiracy. Mr. Perera was not charged because he agreed to testify against Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer.

Mr. Perera testified that Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer had kept the contract secret because they knew it would create a political scandal if it became public. Defense lawyers noted that Mr. Perera, a developer who had served prison time for cocaine trafficking and tax fraud in the 1990s, was allowed to keep the roughly $5 million he made from the Venezuela deal.

One of the defense witnesses was Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, a Republican, who testified that he worked with Mr. Rivera in 2017 to try to persuade Mr. Maduro to step down and hold presidential elections. Mr. Sessions also said that he did not know at the time about Mr. Rivera’s secret Venezuela contract.

Edward R. Shohat, one of Mr. Rivera’s defense lawyers, told jurors in his closing argument that prosecutors had tried to confuse them. “All that he was about was removing Mr. Maduro,” Mr. Shohat said of Mr. Rivera.

David O. Markus, a defense lawyer for Ms. Nuhfer, said she had signed onto the contract “in good faith,” believing it was with a U.S. subsidiary. She would never “in a billion years” have tried to help the Maduro government, Mr. Markus said.

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