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The singer is auctioning off some of her old wardrobe — but not before she takes it for another spin.

Andrea Denver and Lexi Sundin from “In the City” chatted with our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, about their pregnancy. The couple shared that spending time with Lindsay Hubbard’s daughter, Gemma, has helped prepare them for parenthood. Of course, we had to ask about the biggest scandal to hit the Bravoverse, and...

Andrea Denver and Lexi Sundin from “In the City” chatted with our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, about their pregnancy. The couple shared that spending time with Lindsay Hubbard’s daughter, Gemma, has prepared them for parenthood. Of course, we had to ask about the biggest scandal of the Bravoverse, and where they...

Lasko is in stable condition after undergoing spinal decompression and stabilization surgery.

Judge Blocks USPS Ballot Rule Tied To Trump's Election Integrity Order

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a Trump administration proposal to boost election integrity by enhancing ballot tracking and verification, finding it conflicted with a 2021 settlement requiring the agency to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled on July 1 that USPS could not move forward with the proposed rule, which would have required states using the mail for federal absentee and mail-in voting to adopt standardized ballot envelopes with trackable barcodes and provide USPS with voter participation lists to make ballot verification easier. Ballot mailings that failed to comply would have been rejected.

One day after the proposed rule was published in early June, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) returned to court in a long-running lawsuit originally filed during the 2020 election, asking Sullivan to enforce a 2021 settlement that requires USPS to prioritize the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail through the 2028 election cycle.

The proposed rule stems from President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing USPS to develop new standards for handling federal ballot mail as part of a broader thrust to bolster election integrity.

The Justice Department, which represented USPS in the case, did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Rule Boosts Election Integrity, DOJ Says

In opposing the NAACP’s motion, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued in a court brief that the proposed rule was designed to improve—not hinder—the handling of election mail.

Attorneys representing the Trump administration wrote that requiring standardized Election Mail logos and Intelligent Mail barcodes would make ballots easier to identify throughout the postal network. They argued this would allow USPS to better monitor the movement of mail-in ballots and help implement the “extraordinary measures” USPS has traditionally used to expedite election mail before federal elections.

“Such requirements promote the ’monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail'; they do not frustrate it,” they wrote in the brief. “And while the Postal Service has proposed requiring state and local election officials to identify the names and addresses of the persons to whom they send ballots and to provide the barcodes for the ballot envelopes, requiring this information—which officials already, by definition, have—would not compromise the lawful delivery of any mail.”

The administration stated in the proposal that the new rule would strengthen election integrity by creating a uniform ballot-tracking system while leaving decisions about voter eligibility entirely to the states.

Election officials—not USPS—would determine who is eligible to vote by mail and would submit lists of voters receiving mail ballots, together with unique barcode information, through a federal portal. The Postal Service would use that information only to verify ballot mailings and improve tracking, not to decide who could vote.

“State and local election officials would maintain full control over who they send ballots to,” government attorneys said in the brief.

“There are no plausible concerns, certainly at this stage, that the Proposed Rule would negatively impact USPS’s ability to timely and reliably deliver Election Mail. Rather, this provision would, again, assist USPS in better being able to track (and thus deliver) such important mail.”

Plaintiffs Claim ‘Confusion and Uncertainty’

The NAACP argued in its motion that the new requirements would violate the 2021 settlement and could prevent eligible voters from receiving mail ballots.

“Implementation of the Proposed Rule would threaten to prevent millions of eligible voters from receiving mail-in ballots to which they are entitled,” attorneys representing the plaintiffs wrote.

They also argued that, even while the rule remains in proposed form, it already caused confusion within USPS, and among election officials and voters, about what procedures will be in place for mail-in ballots in the November 2026 election cycle.

“The pendency of the Proposed Rule ... creates confusion and uncertainty,” they wrote. “USPS, for example, cannot conduct internal or external trainings to plan for a rule that is not yet finalized. Nor can it provide answers or guidance to election officials and voters to mitigate confusion or uncertainty.”

The case traces back to August 2020, when the NAACP sued USPS over operational changes introduced around that time that plaintiffs said caused widespread mail delays during the COVID-19 pandemic and threatened the timely delivery of absentee ballots.

The parties settled the case in December 2021. Under the agreement, USPS committed through 2028 to issue nationwide election-mail guidance, organize regular “outreach meetings” with the NAACP before federal elections, provide performance reports, and make good-faith efforts to prioritize the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail.

Trump’s March executive order directed USPS to develop new standards to strengthen election security, prompting USPS to publish the proposed rule, which the NAACP challenged.

The judge sided with the plaintiffs, concluding that the proposed procedures conflicted with USPS’s commitment to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail.

Allison Zieve, director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represented the NAACP in the case, praised the ruling.

“The court today correctly recognized that USPS’s plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail,” she said in a statement. “USPS’s plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 14:00

Sometimes neighborly disputes can turn violent.

Croatia and Portugal meet in a marquee tilt on Thursday.

The most intense heatwave in the city lasted 12 grueling days, from Aug. 24, 1953 to Sept. 4, 1953.

The Nebraska Democratic candidate said she was "super into" the strange sub-genre.

Kiss those night sweats goodbye.

An NYPD helicopter pilot and a LaGuardia air traffic controller’s radio chatter about the attention-seeking couple who scaled the Empire State Building Wednesday has gone viral as a quintessentially New York City exchange.

Vance Explains How US Will Use Iran MoU To Replenish Global Oil Supply

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Vice President JD Vance said in an interview on "The Michael Knowles Show" published Tuesday that the US would use the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran to "refill" global oil supplies and stockpiles and to prepare for more potential military action against the Islamic Republic.

"I think what the president has told us to do is use this MoU to sort of refill the world's oil economy, to refill some stocks, and then to see where the hand is," the vice president said.

"And … if the Iranians are willing to make the commitments that we would like them to make and are willing to back those up with verifiable milestones, then we are going to change our relationship with Iran. And if they don't do that, then nothing has really changed except for what we’ve already accomplished from the military campaign, which is a lot. So, we kind of have two options here. We have the option of pursuing a long-term deal with the Iranians, but that requires a significant change in their behavior. We have the option of banking our wins and then, of course, doing things on top of that if the president feels that we have to. And I think both of those options are very much in play," he added.

🔴 Vance Says US Is Using the Iran Deal to “Refill” the Oil Market, Then “See Where the Hand Is”

🔸 US Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration is using the memorandum that ended the war with Iran “to sort of refill the world’s oil economy… and then to see where… https://t.co/8U5rfJ0C9q pic.twitter.com/t7f5Hvs7B1

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 1, 2026

Summarizing the position, Knowles said, "So then the message if you’re an Iranian, the message you’re getting from the US is not, okay, we’ve settled this, you get to keep the Strait of Hormuz and we’ll try to play nice. Now, the message is we’re going to serve our self-interest by replenishing the oil coffers and get back to us in 60 days, you might have some fire and brimstone coming back down."

Vance didn’t dispute Knowles’ characterization and said, "And if you actually behave, you won’t, right?"

Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in a post on X that Vance's comments heightened suspicion in Iran that the war will restart despite the MoU. He made the comments in a post discussing the view in Iranian political circles that Israel may launch an attack before Israeli elections are held in October.

“Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week,” Parsi said.

"Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then 'see where the hand is,' two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months," he added.

Full interview:

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 13:40

David Vander Meer, was arrested and charged with the murder on June 22, 2026, but he was found dead in his jail cell from suicide three days later.

She's stretching the boundaries of airplane etiquette.

"They are absolute super heroes and I think King Charles should knight them all."

The extreme heat expected to push "real-feel" temperatures to 100 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit across much of the region.

The Knicks' projected win total next season will look familiar.

Sin(a)tra

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Sin(a)tra

Let’s be Frank: the central banker pow-wow at Sintra had a touch of Sinatra. Fed Chair Warsh belted out “I’ll do it MYYYYYY way,” and everyone else chimed in that they’d had a few regrets about how they’ve run monetary policy and were coincidentally now mentioning them.

Markets swooned when Warsh stated the case for Fed independence and that anyone expecting tolerance for inflation above 2% “would be disappointed.”

Yet he also sang with an AI autotune. While the current “AI shock” is driving a boom in capex, i.e., the inflation he said he will fight, this will eventually expand the supply side through higher productivity, a shift with “huge implications for monetary policy.” In other words, “we’ve all looked around, and we’ve seen that prices are too high,” but he can fight it by saying it will eventually become deflation. (That would logically hold true for tariffs; and wars in the Middle East – if you win them.)

Warsh really will do things his way. He said central banking needs structural adaptation and must move away from forward guidance towards “framework guidance,” with “contemporaneous real-time” big data/AI monitoring to capture what’s going on --not backwards-looking, inaccurate analogue surveys the equivalent of vinyl-- within 9–12 months. This will also include new measures of inflation: are they going to be lower or higher than the current ones based on the heuristic in how they have always been changed so far?

He also wants central bankers to go on tour less. He rejected heavy reliance on “conventional wisdom” or detailed predictive guidance, i.e., a data calendar filled with central bankers talking.

This implies the Wall Street-analyst Brat Pack may soon be out of the picture. What’s a generation of macro-commentary scribblers pushing “X said Y”, or “Survey X was up Z vs consensus of Y, and we guess next month will be A” going to do with nothing to report on? Indeed, if we have omerta and a (transparent?) set of accurate real-time economic indicators, what role is there for macrostrategy? More chatter to fill the space? A meta-approach, i.e., seeing differences between a Kalecki or Minsky view of political economy vs. the neoclassical, as such fundamental questions re-emerge; or, given other economies won’t have the same data quality or timeliness, linking up with what’s going on abroad?

It may also imply that Wall Street itself will not be a Warsh fan. He is no fan of QE and the Fed’s large balance sheet: what if we see deregulation aimed at incentivizing banks to lend into productive capital like factories or infrastructure rather than holding financial assets?

Warsh is perhaps already getting others to do it his way. The ECB’s Lagarde spoke of going “back to basics,” abandoning heavy reliance on unconventional tools and complex forward guidance in favour of simpler frameworks. The BoE’s Bailey voiced regret over past forward guidance practices and aligned with the broader retreat from detailed predictive signalling. The BoC’s Macklem didn’t push back either, and multiple reports note a widespread “open-mindedness” among Sintra attendees on AI and productivity too.

Let me say this not in a shy way, things are changing far more than a “Warsh wants inflation back below 2%” headline captures.

Meanwhile, the brief US Operation Freedom to get Hormuz oil flowing before the US-Iran MoU was reportedly shot down by Saudi Arabia: Riyadh refused to allow the US to use its bases or airspace, to which the US threatened to not shoot down incoming drones or missiles – and is reportedly considering moving bases elsewhere in the region – like Israel(?) Which Iran is again threatening today in tit-for-tat rhetoric.

We had more ‘positive’ talks in Qatar. Both sides reportedly still want the ‘peacefire’ to hold for now, as we expected, as the US tries to convince Iran to look at the ‘bigger picture’ and not insist on control of Hormuz or tolls. However, the US also said Iran will not get any frozen assets until it fulfils the MoU, which Iran puts the other way round, as Tehran claims it will use that cash in Qatar to buy “required goods” while the US says it will be held in escrow and used to buy US products. Meanwhile, VP Vance made clear the MoU is an opportunity to refuel, then see if more war is required (our base case), as Lebanon and Syria, a former Iranian proxy now flipped, joined a CENTCOM-led Middle East security dialogue for first time, and Iraq’s PM gave pro-Iranian militias a 30 September deadline to disarm.

Ukraine will allow weapons exports for first time since start of the war; Germany charged a Ukrainian suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage case; Russia and Crimea are grappling with fuel shortages and blackouts as Zelenskyy warned of further massive Russian strikes planned for Ukraine; the US NATO envoy has warned some allies are ‘lagging’ on their spending; the UK’s defence black hole just tripled to £15bn; Germany is proposing to make US weapons; and US defence startups are raiding the auto and fracking sectors for parts to speed weapons output.

In frenetic geoeconomics, the US opted not to renew the USMCA, so it rolls annually towards a 10-year death unless reworked into Fortress Americas; Canada joined Europe – its song contest that is, alongside Australia; Politico says ‘Europe wants to save its industry. It still can’t agree how’, as the EU imposed a €3 fee on small packages from abroad and reduced steel quotas while raising tariffs; the Supreme Court ruling on independent agencies and regulators is reportedly seeing Europe think again about the €1.7 trillion data deal it signed with the US; the White House is accelerating its plans for AI model standards; the US nuclear power regulator is proposing changing rules that protect people from radiation, as Brussels will bend its budget rules to allow countries to borrow more for EVs, bike lanes, and train stations; and the EU-Mercosur trade deal is sparking a quota tug-of-war as LatAm countries can't agree on how to divide it up.

In equally frenetic politics, democratic socialists continue to win US electoral primaries, seeing Trump warn about the return of communism: while hyperbole to European ears, that’s easily matched by many statements made by new figures on the US far left (and right). It also underlines that there’s no longer a US Overton Window - indeed, following the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship, the Trump plan B is reportedly ‘No expectant moms at the border’; November’s midterms could be wild, and November 2028’s election’s far more so - and Europe and Australia are far from immune.

As such, central banks need to get things right – or talk about ‘revolution’ may not be hyperbole. As the tears subside, there isn’t a lot to find amusing in all this; or bemusing - we are being told by the Establishment that things need to, and will be, done differently ahead, like it or not. And that includes central banking and how one analyses what they are doing and why.

Let the record show I took the blows in trying to flag this well in advance, and I did it my way.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 13:20

Google on Thursday lost its last bid to overturn a record-breaking $4.7 billion antitrust fine from the European Union, the latest blow as overseas regulators crack down on Big Tech.

Cue the fireworks.