President Trump on Wednesday threatened to cut off federal funding for schools if they do not resume in-person learning this fall and criticized a top government health agency for being too tough with its guidelines to aid that process.

"The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!" Trump tweeted.

In a separate tweet, Trump said he disagreed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!"

CDC Director Robert Redfield emphasized at a press briefing held Tuesday with Vice President Pence that the guidelines are just recommendations.

Is this how journalism is supposed to work in America? That you can make - or, more accurately, make up - lurid allegations, and then keep running with them even when there's no proof at all?

What does a newspaper do when it publishes a supposed "bombshell" story and then discovers that, erm, there is actually zero evidence for it?

Well, if you are the New York Times, it appears that you quietly bury a story admitting to this on page 19 - but make it so opaque that even the most diligent reader would be unlikely to make it to the last paragraph, which is where, ever so quietly, you make your confession.

It was bad enough that their original story - alleging that US intelligence agencies believed payments were made by the Russian foreign military intelligence GRU to Afghan fighters as "bounties" for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan - was based on anonymous sources.

Then we had to endure other mainstream media outlets picking up the story, after apparently having it confirmed by other anonymous sources. As one veteran military writer in the US succinctly put it, "I'm not sure that anonymous sources confirming what other anonymous sources said actually proves anything."

Finally, seven days after its 'scoop', the NYT ran another story on the subject, entitled 'New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties', which was published on July 3 and buried in the bowels of the paper.

President Trump's campaign on Wednesday called the Spanish-language news network Univision "a Leftist Propaganda Machine."

"Univision is not a news network; it is a leftist propaganda machine and a mouthpiece of the Democrat Party," a statement from the campaign reads. "We will treat them accordingly."

The campaign has previously accused the Spanish-language TV network of "trashing" Mount Rushmore by describing his speech there last weekend as divisive.

The renewed attack comes after Univision hosted a forum where panelists recommended books on Latin American history, which included "Open Veins of Latin America," a book written by Eduardo Galeano that describes the economic exploitation of Latin America by Europe and the U.S.

Britain has been "complicit" in the devastating Saudi led sea blockade of Yemen, a new investigation by Declassified UK has concluded in a new damning report, "Paralysing a nation". The Saudi-led coalition received British training on naval tactics that are said to have been used to blockade Yemen, an embargo which UN experts have described as "unlawful".

The Royal Navy's role in the world's worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War and the full extent of the training provided by the UK to the Saudis and their allies, came to light following freedom of information requests by Declassified. The website, which monitors British military influence around the world, found extensive evidence of UK support for the Saudi-led sea blockade of Yemen.

Since the beginning of the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen in March 2015, the UK has licensed £5.3 billion ($6.6 billion) worth of arms to the kingdom. Shamefully, the Conservative government has continued the sale of arm and admitted to multiple breaches of a 2019 ban on new licences issued by the Court of Appeal.

"In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant." ― Hannah Arendt, On Violence

What exactly is going on?

Is this revolution? Is this anarchy? Is this a spectacle engineered to distract us from the machinations of the police state? Is this a sociological means of re-setting our national equilibrium? Is this a Machiavellian scheme designed to further polarize the populace and undermine our efforts to stand unified against government tyranny? Is this so-called populist uprising actually a manufactured race war and election-year referendum on who should occupy the White House?

Whatever it is, this — the racial hypersensitivity without racial justice, the kowtowing to politically correct bullies with no regard for anyone else's free speech rights, the violent blowback after years of government-sanctioned brutality, the mob mindset that is overwhelming the rights of the individual, the oppressive glowering of the Nanny State, the seemingly righteous indignation full of sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing, the partisan divide that grows more impassable with every passing day — is not leading us anywhere good.

Certainly it's not leading to more freedom.

This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding.

Liberal billionaire George Soros is on pace to double his 2016 election spending as he works to oust President Donald Trump, public records show.

Soros's big investments in the 2020 race have gone into the coffers of the Democracy PAC, a super PAC that passes money to other liberal PACs working to defeat Trump and congressional Republicans. The super PAC has received $40 million — double the $20 million Soros spent on Democratic efforts during the 2016 election cycle — from both Soros and a nonprofit in his sprawling network.

The megadonor's torrent of spending highlights the extent to which liberal donors are committed to getting Trump out of office. Many groups financially backed by Soros have launched multimillion-dollar attack ad campaigns in swing states to reach moderate voters who backed Trump in 2016. A network of liberal donors, including Soros, has pledged hundreds of millions on 2020 election efforts.

Lithuania has followed its neighbor Latvia's lead to ban five RT channels based on "recommendations" from the country's Foreign Ministry, but offered the same bogus and bizarre excuse for the decision.

Indeed, officials in Vilnius were no more creative with their reasoning for the ban than those in Riga last month, as they came up with the same faulty logic to justify their censorship. Announcing the ban, the regulator said it was being handed down because RT is headed by Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, who is under EU sanctions.

In actual fact, Kiselyov has nothing to do with RT and heads an entirely different news organization called Rossiya Segodnya.

The AIPAC pro-Israel lobby on Monday announced its opposition to a Democratic-endorsed legislation amendment that would see the U.S. barring Israel from using aid money towards its plans to apply sovereignty over parts of the West Bank, citing a politicization of Israel's security needs that would hinder peace efforts.

Last week, 13 Senate Democrats led by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) filed an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would ensure no U.S. funds are expended on Israel's annexation. In a statement, AIPAC said:

"This amendment contradicts the Obama-Biden MOU and goes far beyond current law in ways that damage American interests, risk Israel's security, and make peace less likely."

The Memorandum of Understanding forged by president Obama outlined the provision of $3.3 billion in annual foreign military funding for Israel.

The Washington-based lobby noted the amendment went beyond ensuring U.S. aid was not spent on annexation, and instructed Israel on various matters including where it was permitted to set up lifesaving defense systems like the Iron Dome.

During the course of President Putin's June 24 opening speech during the Moscow Parade celebrating the 75th anniversary of WWII, the following call to action was made:

"We understand how important it is to strengthen friendship and trust between nations, and are open to dialogue and cooperation on the most pressing issues on the international agenda. Among them is the creation of a common reliable security system, something the complex and rapidly changing modern world needs. Only together can we protect the world from new dangerous threats."

This call echoed the President's powerful June 19 article published in the National Interest where he outlined in stark terms the powerful financier and aristocratic forces behind the rise of Hitler in the wake of WWI, and the vital need to honor those millions who died to ensure freedom and survival for future generations. In his article, Putin laid out the call for an emergency meeting among the five veto-carrying members of the U.N. Security Council which he first publicized during his January 15, 2020 State of the Union.

Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of U.S. Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK, issued the following statement on Tuesday:

Our first vice-foreign minister recently made clear her stand in a statement over untimely "rumor about a DPRK-U.S. summit". The statement also mentioned the meddlesome man who had again indicated his intention to arbitrate between the DPRK and the U.S. regardless of time. Our stand was as clear as day to be easily understood by the south using the same language as us.

Nevertheless, such nonsensical talks that there was no change in their efforts to mediate a DPRK-U.S. summit are ceaselessly heard from the south. They seem to have a bad ear or are guided by the habit of always talking in their own favor.

To top it all, some people make self-centered interpretation of our first vice-foreign minister's statement that it is "a message urging the U.S. to act" and "a kind of asking for more concession".

Irony is that the south, which fails to manage its own business, came out to offer "a helping hand" allegedly to solve the DPRK-U.S. relations which are getting more and more complicated.

It is just the time for it to stop meddling in other's affairs but it seems there is no cure or prescription for its bad habit. The inter-Korean relations are bound to go further bankrupt as they only talk nonsense, unaware of the time. We feel sorry to see it trying so hard to become the "mediator" but it may try as much as it wants if it cherishes so strong wish to try it to the end. Time will show whether its efforts will succeed or it will only suffer a loss and ridicule.

Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face-to-face with U.S.