Former President Donald Trump dominated the 2024 GOP presidential nomination straw poll at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit Sunday, Fox News has learned.

TPUSA polled conference attendees — youth activists from around the country — who they would vote for in 2024 if Trump decided to launch another White House run. The straw poll was sponsored by Turning Point Action, the affiliated 501(c)(4) of TPUSA.

78.7% attendees said they would vote for Trump.

19% said they would vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 1% said they'd vote for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, 0.5% said they'd vote for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; 0.3% said they would vote for Sen. Ted Cruz, 0.3% said they'd vote for former Amb. Nikki Haley; and 0.3% said they'd vote for former Vice President Mike Pence.

According to information shared with RT, Kiev's spies offered Russian pilots money and EU citizenship as a reward

Russian intelligence has claimed that it foiled a sophisticated plot from Ukrainian spies to hijack several military jets. A security official official and a pilot, who is said to have been targeted by Kiev's agents, have shared details of the operation with RT.

Russia's Federal Security Service (the FSB) has sensationally added that a leading figure from the US-government funded investigative organization Bellingcat - which presents itself as a journalistic grouping - was also involved in the scheme, which it believes was "supervised by NATO intelligence agencies." The FSB specifically pointed the finger at British operatives.

Russia's top diplomat said Moscow's overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its "unacceptable regime," expressing the Kremlin's war aims in some of the bluntest terms yet as its forces pummel the country with artillery barrages and airstrikes.

The remark from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comes amid Ukraine's efforts to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports — something that would help ease global food shortages — under a new deal tested by a Russian strike on Odesa over the weekend.

"We are determined to help the people of eastern Ukraine to liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime," Lavrov said at an Arab League summit in Cairo late Sunday, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy's government.

Good morning, and Happy Tuesday, C&C!

Today's roundup: the Economist tentatively questions the Ukraine narrative; the US embassy evacuates Kyiv and offers tips for Americans in Ukraine; the Russians raise more biolab accusations against the U.S. and an essay on the implications; a new study shows masks bad for immunocomprised folks; antimicrobial infections spiking; covid passports fall in France; NYC schools hemorrhaging students; and Mr. Magoo has a close call.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 The Economist ran a story yesterday headlined, "Is America Growing Weary of the Long War In Ukraine?" Well. I was immediately suspicious, because the Ukraine war hasn't been that long, not really, not when compared to the war on covid or any other war, for that matter.

The Economist ruefully noted that "even Mr Biden's closest allies are asking whether America might soon tire of the burden," and admits that Biden "is more unpopular even than Donald Trump was at this point in his presidency."

My gosh! More unpopular than President Trump! And even though he's heroically opposing the Russians.

Late in the article, the Economist put its tobacco-stained finger right on the squidge that marks the real problem:

Mr. Biden's aim in the war is unclear. His administration has stopped talking about helping Ukraine to "win", and instead speaks of preventing it from being defeated.

That's the problem, all right. What IS the goal, Joe? If it's "winning," what does that even look like and how do we get there?

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is calling for the end of private car ownership in the name of saving the world from climate change by reducing the need for green tech resources.

"We need a clean energy revolution, and we need it now," the WEF begins its article.

According to the WEF, critical metals, such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel — all of which are used in "clean energy technologies" — are in short supply. And while the WEF says recycling old tech that uses these metals could lessen the impact of shortages, it's simply not enough. The WEF asks:

"The complication is that we do not currently have enough metals in circulation, and even with recycling taken into consideration, mineral production is still forecasted to increase by nearly 500%. So how should we proceed?"

Top of the list of solutions for how the WEF thinks we should proceed is to "Go from owning to using."

Sound familiar?

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has denied that the American economy is in recession, even though a report this week may confirm it by the most common definition, saying the nation is instead going through a "necessary and appropriate" slowdown.

Yellen defended President Joe Biden's economic policies in an NBC News interview on Sunday, arguing that a negative GDP report won't mean that the world's largest economy is in recession. The report is scheduled for release on Thursday and, following first-quarter contraction at an annual rate of 1.6%, the latest data may confirm that the economy is shrinking.

Two straight quarters of economic contraction is typically viewed as a recession, Yellen acknowledged, but she tried to reframe how the trend should be defined. She told Chuck Todd:

"We could see that happen, and that will be closely watched, but I do want to emphasize: What a recession really means is a broad-based contraction in the economy. Even if that number is negative, we are not in a recession now. I would warn that we should be not characterizing that as a recession."

Yellen, who chaired the US Federal Reserve Bank until then-President Donald Trump declined to appoint her to a second term in 2017, argued that because of strong job growth and other favorable data points, the economy isn't in a broad-based decline. However, Todd pointed out that unemployment claims are rising and business activity is slowing, which he suggested might be signs of a coming recession.

Moscow has destroyed US-supplied weapons, including heavy artillery, during a strike on Sunday in western Ukraine, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Storage facilities containing missiles for HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and shells for M777 howitzers were targeted. A shipment station outside Bogdanovtsy village, which hosted the munitions, was hit with "sea-based high-precision long-range weapons," it added.

The US is Kiev's biggest backer in its conflict with Moscow and has supplied Ukraine with 16 HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, as of July 22.

Last week, the Russian military said that it had destroyed four of those systems between July 5 and 20. However, Ukraine refuted these claims as "misinformation."

The head of the Armed Forces Committee of the US House of Representatives, Adam Smith, who visited Kiev during the weekend, said that Washington and its allies plan to provide Ukraine with an additional 25-to-30 rocket systems, including both high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS).

The Jewish Agency is Israel's life source and the Kremlin shut it down this month. The fallout may be a measurable schism between Moscow and Tel Aviv, in which the latter has a lot to lose.
A row has erupted in Russian-Israeli relations over the functioning of the Jewish Agency in Moscow. The Jerusalem Post first reported on 5 July that Moscow had ordered the Jewish Agency to cease all operations in Russia, in a formal letter from the Russian Justice Ministry "earlier this week."

The Jewish Agency initially played down the development in a statement which said, "As part of the work of the Jewish Agency's delegation in Russia, we are occasionally required to make certain adjustments, as required by authorities. Discussions with the authorities are ongoing with the aim of continuing our activities in accordance with the rules. Even now, there is a dialogue."

An unnamed senior Israeli diplomat told the Jerusalem Post, "Russia is saying the Jewish Agency illegally collected info about Russian citizens... We will bring up the Jewish Agency [with Russian authorities] and address it in an organized way. It will be taken care of at the embassy level. We don't totally understand the reasoning [of the request to stop Jewish Agency's activities in Russia]."

The problem runs deep

However, on 11 July, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti disclosed that a four-week long audit of the Sohnut (as the Jewish Agency is known in Russia) by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation had been underway since 30 May, within the purview of the federal law on "Non-Commercial Organizations."

The Ministry of Justice conveyed to RIA Novosti that on the basis of the results of the audit, "an act was prepared, which has been sent to the address of the location of the organization (Sohnut)."

Since then, to borrow the metaphor from the Old Testament, the cloud "as small as a man's hand rising from the sea" when Elijah first saw it, has swiftly turned into a storm. On July 21, Russia's TASS news agency reported that the Basmanny District Court of Moscow received on that day a lawsuit from the Russian Ministry of Justice requesting that the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel be liquidated. The grounds for the suit were not provided.

The Jewish Agency has a larger-than-life stature and is closely connected to, albeit not funded by, the Israeli government. It is an international organization that fosters links between Jews across the world and Israel and promotes the immigration of Jews to Israel, a process known as "Aliyah."

Western countries have tried to bar Arab officials from photo opportunities with Russian counterparts, the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a visit to Egypt on Sunday.

Lavrov revealed that before heading to Cairo he was shown a document from the Arab League, which has its HQ in the Egyptian capital, speaking about "an initiative ... by a group of ambassadors from the US, France, Germany, the UK and a representative of the EU."

"It demanded our Arab friends, firstly condemn, secondly, reject certain actions by Russia. And this initiative especially stressed that they shouldn't sign any documents with us and take pictures with us," the Russian FM pointed out after talks with his Egyptian colleague, Sameh Shoukry.

House Democrats' marquee summer show of primetime investigative hearings ended Thursday night where it began: unable or unwilling to answer essential questions about the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

Chief among them: If Donald Trump wanted to incite violence that fateful day, as his critics suggest, then why did he order the Pentagon to have a large military force ready to quell a disturbance? And why did a Democrat-led Congress turn down the assistance of pop National Guard troops in the face of intelligence warnings about violence?

By their own admission, Democrats set up the hearings to evade such scrutiny. They declared any questions about what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about the potential for Jan. 6 violence and when she knew it were off limits.