Happy Fourth of July!

🇾🇪⚡- UKMTO reports a commercial vessel is currently under attack by 'unknown armed assailants' in the Red Sea.

🇲🇱⚡️- The FLA claims to have ambushed and decimated a relief convoy from the FAMa and Africa Corps from Gao headed to reinforce their last garrison in Anéfis.

🇺🇸⚡️- Mallory McMorrow has dropped out of the Democrat Primary race for Michigan's Senate seat.

This clears the way for DSA aligned Abdul El-Sayed to win the primary and likely a seat in the US Senate.

🇺🇸⚡️- Robert O’Neill, the US Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden during Operation Neptune Spear, comments on Sneako’s rant about making the entire world Muslim.

🇺🇸⚡️- Michigan's Attorney General has endorsed Haley Stevens for Senate. Other state Democrat leaders, and national figures, are expected to endorse Stevens in opposition to El-Sayed.

🇺🇸🇳🇴🇧🇷⚡- Brazil's national soccer team have been eliminated from the World Cup following an Erling Haaland brace.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇲🇽⚡️- England has beaten Mexico 3-2 in The World Cup

🇦🇺🇫🇯🇨🇳⚡- Australia and Fiji have signed the Ocean of Peace Alliance, committing to come to each other's defense in the event of an attack.

The pact is Fiji's first military alliance and Australia's fourth, alongside its agreements with the United States, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, reinforcing Canberra's efforts to counter growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.

Just hours after the agreement was signed, China, in a very North Korean way, test-launched a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear-run submarine in the southern Pacific. Australia called Beijing's immature behavior destabilizing, New Zealand criticized the lack of notice, but Beijing alleged it was a 'routine exercise'.

🇺🇸⚡️- "Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel delivered a series of provocative warnings and predictions about the future of artificial intelligence and the West on Tuesday, accusing Pope Leo XIV of inadvertently serving as a “Chinese communist agent” by calling for AI regulation. In his remarks at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, he also warned of a “democratic-socialist takeover” of the United States’ Democratic Party." - CNN.

🇺🇸🇨🇳⚡️- Ezra Jin, pastor of the Beijing Zion Protestant Church, has been released from Chinese detention and arrived in the United States after Trump raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Beijing Zion Church was one of the largest illegal and unregistered churches in China, where religious communities are required to register with the government.

Ezra Jin, along with 18 other members of the Zion church, was arrested in October of last year during an anti-religious crackdown by the Chinese government on unregistered religious groups. Despite Jin's release, at least eight members of the Zion church are still detained in China.

🇱🇧🇮🇱⚡️- "We also take care of our friends, especially the Christians in the Middle East. The Christian villages in Lebanon, some of them have actually asked to be annexed to Israel because we protect them from Hezbollah, who want to kill them. We do the same things to Christians everywhere. We protect Christians in the Middle East”. - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

🇻🇪⚡️- The death toll from the earthquakes in Venezuela has been updated to 3,342. A mass burial of 150 unidentified bodies were laid to rest in a cemetery.

🇺🇸🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️- "US President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of both Ukraine and Russia on Saturday amid the US's Fourth of July celebrations, Kyiv and Moscow said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a "very good phone call" with Trump, in which he congratulated the US on its 250th birthday and discussed the current situation on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added that there was a "real prospect" of ending the conflict and that he and Trump had agreed to continue their talks during the upcoming NATO Summit in Ankara, which is set to take place from 7 to 8 July." - Euro News.