Mid-morning News Briefing: Assange’s flight, Biden gets bad news on debt relief plot, Maricopa County election worker BUSTED, Obama to the rescue, more…

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Below are important excerpts from some of the top stories in the news this morning:

1 – Julian Assange dropping $500K for flight to remote island to avoid setting foot on US mainland

From the New York Post: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shelled out half a million dollars to fly to a remote island to avoid returning to the American mainland after accepting a plea deal with the US government and being freed from prison. Assange, 52, was freed Monday morning from UK prison and flew from London Stansted Airport to the US territory of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands — a $500,000 flight, according to reports.

He will have a US federal court hearing Wednesday morning on the remote commonwealth island. There, he will plead guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information for releasing classified reports on the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on his WikiLeaks site, the US Justice Department said in the court docs filed Monday.

Assange reportedly refused to set foot on the American mainland, and instead opted for the tropical island as it was closer to his homeland of Australia, the Sun reported. The American territory is only about 1,800 miles from Australia, compared to the 7,000 miles between it and Hawaii. After he pleads guilty to the one charge, he is expected to be allowed to fly home, with his five years in UK prison counting as time served. His wife, Stella Assange, said he will seek a pardon from the US after pleading guilty to the charge.

2 – Parts of Biden student loan forgiveness plan blocked by judges

From the Washington Examiner: Two federal judges blocked parts of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Federal judges in Missouri and Kansas ruled that the Saving on a Valuable Education program can’t be fully implemented. So far, debt for over 400,000 borrowers has been forgiven, at the amount of $5.5 billion.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who put forward the challenge to SAVE, celebrated the move in a post on X.

“BREAKING: The Court has granted our motion to BLOCK Joe Biden’s illegal student loan plan,” he said. “Congress never gave Biden the authority to saddle working Americans with half-a-trillion dollars in other people’s debt. A huge win for the Constitution.”

“Blue collar Kansas workers who didn’t go to college shouldn’t have to pay off the student loans of New Yorkers with gender studies degrees,” wrote Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach.

3 – Biden Admin Weighed Using ‘School Children’ To Help Register Dem-Leaning Voters, Emails Show

From the Daily Caller: The Biden administration sought taxpayer funding for a program that would use school children to provide voter registration materials to Native Americans, according to emails obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Department of the Interior (DOI) officials in 2022 developed a plan that would have given Native American children attending Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools voter registration materials to bring home to their parents, internal emails show. Native Americans strongly preferred Democratic House candidates that year, with 56% saying they would cast their ballot for a Democrat compared to the 40% who said they’d vote Republican, according to a poll conducted by the African American Research Collaborative shortly before the midterm elections.

“Department leadership is proposing having BEI send home voter registration cards with students to give to their parents,” BIE team lead Jennifer Wiginton wrote in a February 2022 email.

4 – Election Worker for Maricopa County Arrested for Theft of Keys from Election Center

From Breitbart:  A temporary election worker for Maricopa County in Arizona was arrested after he allegedly stole items from an election center. Law enforcement officials revealed that 27-year-old Walter Ringfield was arrested on Friday after he reportedly stole a security fob and keys from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, according to KTAR News.

Ringfield, who was on probation for a previous felony, was booked into jail on charges of “theft and criminal damage,” according to the outlet. The Maricopa County Elections Department said in a statement to ABC15 that election workers who had been conducting “daily inventory” on Friday morning, realized that “an item” was missing “from the Ballot Tabulation Center and had been taken the night before.”

MORE DETAILS: Ringfield was reportedly exploring a run for the U.S. Senate – as a Democrat.

Questions are being raised about why all Ringfield’s social media accounts have been scrubbed – except for his Truth Social account.

5 – Obama again stepping into role as president’s closer ahead of Trump v Biden rematch

From Fox News: Former President Obama is again stepping in to help lock up votes and dollars during the home stretch of President Biden’s quest for the White House, apparently having ditched the concerns that reportedly made Obama wary of Biden’s candidacy in 2020.

Biden’s rematch with former President Trump features a second encore from Obama, whose celebrity and status with Democratic donors has been a financial and public relations boon to Biden at a time when the president is facing increasing questions about his record, plans and cognitive abilities.

“I take great pride in what the Biden administration has accomplished,” Obama said during a recent event with Biden and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. “And it’s a reminder that we don’t have to just vote against something in this election. We have somebody to worry about. And there’s a whole agenda that we should be concerned about.”

6 – AOC doubles down on bizarre, cringeworthy antics at pro-Bowman rally

From the NY Post: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her manic cameo at a weekend Bronx rally in support of fellow far-left Rep. Jamaal Bowman, saying the R-rated event had been “fun as hell.”

“Fox News is big mad that we’re for the many, not the money,” the “Squad” member wrote on X along with a clip of her on-stage gyrations at St. Mary’s Park in Mott Haven.

“We rallied 1,200 people in the Bronx to take on dark money, get fired up, and send busloads of volunteers to canvass and phone bank. It’s called organizing. And it’s fun as hell.”

7 – Biden DOE Outsourcing Home Appliance Regulations to Left-Wing Green Groups

From the Washington Free Beacon: Each time the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized regulations targeting popular home appliances—including stoves, clothes washers, refrigerators, and water heaters—over the last several months, the agency included a similar line in the announcement: The new rules were crafted with the help of recommendations from a “wide range of stakeholders.”

According to the DOE, the stakeholders included industry partners and consumer advocacy organizations. A Washington Free Beacon review, however, shows 7 out of the 10 stakeholders whose recommendations DOE consulted are climate activist groups or left-leaning consumer groups. Those groups collectively boast substantial financial backing from grantmaking nonprofits that regularly funnel money to a wide range of progressive social and environmental initiatives.

Among the stakeholders are the Consumer Federation of America, Appliance Standards Awareness Project, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Earthjustice, National Consumer Law Center, National Resources Defense Council, and Consumer Reports. Those groups have received millions of dollars from nonprofits such as the Bloomberg Family Foundation, TomKat Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Schmidt Family Foundation.

8 – Police open fire on demonstrators trying to storm Kenya parliament, several dead

From Reuters: Police opened fire on demonstrators trying to storm Kenya’s legislature on Tuesday, with at least five protesters killed, dozens wounded and sections of the parliament building set ablaze as lawmakers inside passed legislation to raise taxes.
In chaotic scenes, protesters overwhelmed police and chased them away in an attempt to storm the parliament compound. Flames could be seen coming from inside.

Police opened fire after tear gas and water cannon failed to disperse the crowds.
A Reuters journalist counted the bodies of at least five protesters outside parliament. A paramedic, Vivian Achista, said at least 10 had been shot dead.

9 – Construction workers are dying by suicide at an alarming rate

From NBC News: In a swath of Arizona desert that will soon be home to a multibillion-dollar semiconductor plant, Justin Azbill stood before thousands of construction workers and told the story of the day he almost took his life.

Pressure had been building on Azbill for months at his job as safety director for a large Boston construction firm during the height of the pandemic. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed, Azbill said he packed a lethal means to harm himself in his lunch sack.

In a swath of Arizona desert that will soon be home to a multibillion-dollar semiconductor plant, Justin Azbill stood before thousands of construction workers and told the story of the day he almost took his life.

Pressure had been building on Azbill for months at his job as safety director for a large Boston construction firm during the height of the pandemic. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed, Azbill said he packed a lethal means to harm himself in his lunch sack.

Azbill, who got his start in construction as an ironworker, has been traveling to construction sites across the country sharing his story as he and others in the industry race to address what they say is an epidemic of suicide among their colleagues — many of whom are under increasing strain amid a nationwide construction boom and a shortage of workers.

10 – Wave of beaches are shut down after officials make sickening discovery in the ocean

From the Daily Mail: A wave of San Diego beaches have been shut down following a disgusting discovery in the water. City health officials released an updated advisory and closure list of beaches due to sewage creating frighteningly high levels of bacteria in the open waters.

Water contact closures were issued for Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines, and the Tijuana Slough Shoreline, located along the U.S, Mexico border. Advisories were issued for the La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, the Ocean Beach, Dog Beach, the San Diego River outlet, Mission Bay, North Cove, and Vacation Isle.

In Imperial Beach, the number one dirtiest beach in the country, bright yellow warning signs have been placed on the sand as sewage has been flowing in from Tijuana, Mexico, KGTV reported.

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