The Church of England has voted to hear Palestinian Christians, defying efforts by pro-Israel organisations to dismiss their testimony about Israel’s “settler colonialism” and “apartheid system”.
The General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, backed an amended motion on Monday urging congregations and institutions across England to “hear” and engage with testimonies produced by the group Kairos Palestine.
The Kairos document describes Israel as a “colonial enterprise” that has inflicted a “genocidal war on Gaza”.
Synod members replaced the word “receive” with “hear”, making clear that the engagement did not require the Church to endorse every sentence.
The motion also recognised the document as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians” and called on the Church to stand with Palestinians in non-violent resistance to Israel’s occupation.
Church of England votes to hear Palestinian Christians on Israeli genocide in Gaza
Mahmoud Khalil sues Trump administration officials and pro-Israel groups for 'conspiracy'
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Khalil's lawyers from Beldock Levine & Hoffman announced the lawsuit, alleging that these groups “sought to terrorize and make an example of” him and other non-citizen Palestinian rights activists "in an effort to intimidate and weaken the growing movement for Palestinian solidarity”.
The lawsuit was brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, according to CCR.
The lawsuit alleges that his targeting was driven by anti-Palestinian animus and that the “private anti-Palestinian groups” coordinated with administration officials to persecute Khalil and other Palestinian rights advocates.
“The goal was never to win an argument. The goal was always to manufacture fear, to convince people that the cost of speaking out would be too high. When those campaigns were not enough, they brought in the power of the state,” Khalil said of the groups.
Polish Jets Intercept Russian Spy Plane Over Baltic Sea
Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea and forced it to withdraw, in what Warsaw described as another attempt by Moscow to probe NATO’s air defenses.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced this on Tuesday, calling the situation “another Russian provocation over the Baltic Sea.”
“I remind you. It is Russia that is the aggressor,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said, adding that the aircraft was “gathering intelligence on the defense systems” and that “Russia is testing the Alliance’s readiness in this way.”
Two teens charged in fatal shootings of five family members in Illinois
Two teenagers were charged with murder Tuesday in the killings of five members of an Illinois family who were shot at three different locations.
A 16-year-old boy will be prosecuted as an adult, while the case against a 15-year-old girl will start in juvenile court before a possible transfer to the St Clair county criminal court, the county prosecutor’s office said.
Five people were killed and two more were wounded, primarily on Sunday, in a “targeted mass shooting” in East St Louis, an Illinois city across the Mississippi river from St Louis, police said. Troopers stopped a vehicle and arrested the teens Sunday in a state park, the Illinois state police director, Brendan Kelly, said.
Court documents don’t reveal a motive. But Marcus May, the father of the 15-year-old, told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that the girl was upset with family members and plotted the attacks with Ja’ymeir Davis, her boyfriend.
Bill to make daylight saving time permanent passes US House vote: ‘Americans are tired of the clock change’
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would end the practice of changing clocks twice a year and make daylight saving time permanent.
The bid to end clock-changing, dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, has bipartisan support, including the backing of Donald Trump and some Democratic co-sponsors. Following the 308-117 tally in the House, the bill next goes to the Senate.
A House rules committee approved the rule to advance the bill on a 6-4 vote on Monday.
Most US states change clocks twice a year, springing forward in the spring and falling back in the fall with the goal of extending daylight hours. Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t participate in the clock-changing.
The bill, sponsored by Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican representative, would make daylight saving time the new permanent standard time. It would lead to later sunrises and sunsets, giving more daylight in the evening hours during darker times of year. Under the proposal, states would have the option to opt out and remain on permanent standard time.
Senate Democrats block NDAA amid concerns on Iran War, budget topline
Senate Democrats today blocked the fiscal 2027 defense authorization act from moving to the Senate floor, impeding the trajectory of the typically bipartisan measure, due to opposition to the war in Iran and concerns about the growth in defense spending.
Senators voted 50-46 on party lines, failing to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to bring it to the floor.
Today’s vote marks the second time in two weeks that lawmakers have held up progress on the National Defense Authorization Act, which would greenlight about $1.14 trillion in funding for the Defense Department and make policy changes with implications for troop pay, drone operations and defense contractor earnings.
Another key concern is the high price tag of the FY27 budget request, which — if coupled with a further $350 billion in reconciliation spending requested by the Pentagon — would bring defense spending to a historic height of $1.5 trillion at the same time the Trump administration has made sweeping cuts to other government agencies.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said both the war and the budget influenced his vote against proceeding with the NDAA, noting that Congress has yet to come up with a bipartisan deal that sets an agreed upon topline for defense and nondefense spending.
Key GOP senator concerned over Blanche involvement in Trump IRS deal
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he is “concerned” about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s role in crafting a settlement between President Trump, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Justice Department to shield Trump and his family from IRS audits for years to come.
Cornyn said he was disturbed by a federal judge’s scathing order criticizing Blanche’s role in crafting the settlement between Trump and the IRS.
“I’m concerned about that,” Cornyn said on Tuesday, one day before Blanche appears before the Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing to serve as attorney general.
“We’ll be prepared to ask him some questions about not just the weaponization fund but the tax audit issue [and] also whether or not the lawsuit that was brought was a real lawsuit or whether it was, in the words of the federal judge, collusive,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams questioned on Monday whether Trump filed his lawsuit against the IRS “in bad faith with the improper purpose of dishonestly advancing a political narrative.”
5 takeaways as Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kagan testify on Capitol Hill
In the first appearances by members of the Supreme Court before Congress in seven years, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified on Tuesday in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although the focus of the justices’ testimony was the court’s budget, which Congress appropriates, the two discussed a wide range of issues, from security and enforcement of the court’s ethics code to its emergency (Kagan’s preference) or interim docket.
After beginning her remarks by expressing condolences for the recent death of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kagan explained that the “recent growth” in the Supreme Court’s budget (which will exceed $220 million in Fiscal Year 2027) was “almost entirely for security expenses.”
When she joined the court in 2010, Kagan noted, it was an “entirely different world” in which she had security only for public events. The court started to focus more on security in 2016, she remarked, when Justice Antonin Scalia died in Texas, and the closest U.S. marshals were two hours away. But the “big ramp-up” came in 2022 with the leak of the court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court overturned the recognition of a constitutional right to an abortion. At that point, she emphasized, the attention to security “acquired even more urgency.”
Barrett stressed that although statistics about threats to federal judges may “sound abstract,” “being on the receiving end of them is not.” Barrett recounted thttps://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/justices-kagan-and-barrett-testify-before-congress/he story of bringing home a bulletproof vest because of the threats that she received in the wake of the Dobbs leak and having to explain the vest to her son. Six weeks ago, she continued, she was the victim of a swatting incident; because her Supreme Court police detail was already at her house, they were able to intercept the police and tell them it was a false alarm. And like other judges, she noted, she has received “false deliveries” sent in the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, a federal judge in New Jersey; Anderl was killed in 2020 by a lawyer who had litigated a case before Salas, and the deliveries were intended to intimidate the recipients. “The threat level is really high,” Barrett concluded.
E. Jean Carroll gets $5.6M from Trump for sex abuse, defamation
New York writer E. Jean Carroll is finally getting paid more than three years after a federal civil jury held President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, allegations Trump continues to deny.
Trump fought that request, arguing that he is asking the Supreme Court for a rehearing, so his fight isn't over.
After Carroll was awarded a larger, $83.3 million judgment against Trump in a separate case that is still under appeal, she publicly discussed giving the money away to causes Trump dislikes. Trump's legal team noted those statements in his court filing, saying his funds "likely will not be recoverable" if the Supreme Court changes its mind.
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