Delta flight diverted after spoiled food served

 A Delta Air Lines flight was diverted Wednesday after passengers were served spoiled food, the airline said.

The redeye flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was diverted to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, taking off around 11 p.m. Tuesday and landing in New York at 4 a.m.

The flight was diverted “after reports that a portion of the Main Cabin in-flight meal service were spoiled,” a Delta spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill

According to the New York Fire Department, emergency medical responders met the flight at the airport and treated 12 passengers, The Associated Press reported.

USA Today reported that the passengers treated were evaluated but refused medical attention or transportation to a hospital.

The company apologized for the incident and said it would be investigating it.

“This is not the service Delta is known for and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and delay in their travels,” the spokesperson said.

It’s not known how many of the 277 total passengers ate the food.

The spokesperson said customers have been booked on alternate Wednesday flights out of JFK and were offered hotel rooms.

https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/4753595-delta-flight-spoiled-food-detroit-amsterdam-new-york/

'DC water confirmed safe to drink after precautionary boil water advisory'

 Water in Washington, D.C., has been confirmed safe to drink Thursday after the district faced a boil water advisory a day before.

“All DC Water customers under the precautionary boil water advisory can use tap water for all purposes after it was confirmed that drinking water provided by the Washington Aqueduct never deviated from U.S. EPA established water quality standards as had been anticipated,” the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) said in a release Thursday.

DC Water issued the advisory late Wednesday for every one of its customers in the district, as well as the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and Reagan National Airport, it said in a release. It called it a “precautionary notice to all customers to boil water that may be ingested due to water of unknown quality.”

“This advisory will remain in place until follow-up testing confirms the water is safe to drink,” the release continued.

Arlington County also issued a boil water advisory “for customers across the County” Wednesday “due to water clarity issues found at the Washington Aqueduct, the County’s source for drinking water,” according to an article on its website.

The Washington Aqueduct produces an average of 135 million gallons of water per day, supplying drinking water to roughly 1 million people in D.C., Arlington County and other parts of northern Virginia, according to the Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which runs it.

“The Washington Aqueduct has recommended issuance of a Boil Water Advisory for the District of Columbia and portions of Northern Virginia due to elevated turbidity levels in water supply caused by increases in algae blooms in the Potomac River,” the Baltimore District said in a news release Wednesday.

“Blooms generally occur during high temperatures, causing conditions in water where nutrient levels are high,” the release continued.

“Turbidity, a measure of water’s cloudiness or clarity, plays a crucial role in assessing water quality. It is an important factor in water quality, as it can interfere with the effectiveness of water treatment process and impact the color, taste, and smell of drinking water,” the release added.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4755244-boil-water-advisories-washington-dc-arlington/mlite/

Newsom pulls California crime ballot measure a day after touting it as ‘critical step’

 California Democrats were set to vote Wednesday on an anti-crime measure that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) hoped would combat a Republican-backed one that will be on the ballot in the state this fall, but Democrats reversed course at the last second, halting the effort.

Newsom held up his proposed ballot measure as a “critical step” to address property crime and the fentanyl crisis in an announcement Monday.

But the measure was taken off state legislators’ agenda just a day later, before they were set to vote on its approval for the November ballot on Wednesday.

Newsom had hoped the measure would offer a more moderate alternative to a reform proposal that will be on the Election Day ballot. That proposal aims to repeal parts of Proposition 47, a landmark bill that turned many crimes in the state from felonies to misdemeanors. It’s backed by conservative lawmakers, as well as big-box retailers and prosecutors.

Both moderate and progressive Democrats in the state Legislature had been wary of Newsom’s proposal, which some viewed as a hasty response to the Republican effort, the Los Angeles Times reported. State Legislature leaders had also previously promised not to make any reforms to Prop 47 at all, instead proposing alternative anti-crime bills.

The measure needed to be passed and signed by midnight Wednesday to be eligible for the ballot. But those concerns, combined with lawmaker absences due to the Fourth of July holiday, put the results of a vote up in the air.

Newsom then decided to travel to Washington to meet with President Biden and other Democratic governors on Wednesday amid concerns within the party following the president’s poor performance in last week’s debate. The California governor has been floated as a top pick to replace Biden, if the president were to end his reelection campaign.

“We are unable to meet the ballot deadline to secure necessary amendments to ensure this measure’s success and we will be withdrawing it from consideration,” Newsom said in a statement about the decision to pull the proposal. “I’d like to thank the Legislature and countless stakeholders who came to the table to work on meaningful reforms and I look forward to our work ahead.”

Newsom blamed the measure’s failure on the California District Attorneys Association (CDAA) for not working with the administration. The CDAA has backed the other anti-crime reform measure and has advocated against Prop 47 for years.

The CDAA celebrated Democrats withdrawing the countermeasure in a statement.

“We are pleased the Governor and Legislature have dropped their countermeasure and welcome them to join our campaign to responsibly amend Prop 47 to deal with retail theft, the fentanyl crisis and homelessness,” association CEO Greg Totten said.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4755313-california-democrats-anti-crime-ballot-measure-pulled/

'Students at fake university created by ICE can sue US, court rules'

 Students who enrolled in a fake university set up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of a sting operation can sue the U.S., an appeals court ruled last week.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that dismissed a complaint against the U.S. by an Indian student named Ravi Teja Tiyagurra.

The University of Farmington was created by ICE in 2015 in Michigan with the aim of exposing student visa fraud. The operation was publicly revealed when eight people were indicted for visa fraud and “harboring aliens for profit” in 2019.

According to the appeals court ruling, Ravi said in his 2021 complaint that he was unaware the apparent university was not a real school and paid thousands of dollars to enroll as a student. He alleged that he had “entered into a contract” with the University of Farmington for education services and that the university “had breached that contract, and the contract’s implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” per the decision.

“The government’s operation eventually came to light, but the government neither provided the paid-for education nor gave Mr. Ravi his money back,” the judges wrote in the ruling.

“The University of Farmington students and their legal team are ecstatic that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled to allow the 600 students unjustly targeted by this fake ICE university to have their day in court,” Anna Nathanson, an attorney for Ravi, said in a press release last Friday. 

The Hill has reached out to ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4755305-ice-fake-university-students-can-sue-us-court-rules/

Dems in competitive House races break from Biden

 Several Democrats running in competitive House districts this cycle are breaking from President Biden, underscoring growing concerns that the incumbent could be a down-ballot liability following his rocky debate performance in Atlanta last week. 

Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) have both declared they have no confidence in Biden winning, while Adam Frisch, a Democrat running to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), said the president should withdraw. 

Their remarks come amid growing speculation that more members of the party will call for Biden to step aside after the fallout from last week’s debate. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Biden had spoken with several allies as he weighed his candidacy, though the White House has disputed that reporting. 

“We’ve got frontliners who, even before this, would have been trying to distance themselves from Biden anyway,” said one House Democrat, who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic.

“The query is: Do you need to distance yourself further by saying the Democrats should have somebody else at the top of the ticket?” the lawmaker added. “Because if that becomes what they need to do, then we’re really in trouble. He already is a down-ballot issue, especially in those states. How much worse does it get for them is the question.”

The president and his campaign have failed to quell Democratic anxiety over his candidacy, including longstanding concerns about his age and mental fitness, in the days since his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump.  

Several days after the CNN-hosted event, Biden campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a memo projecting confidence about the state of the president’s candidacy while seeking to damp down fretting from the naysayers.  

But that has done little to quell the fear among Democrats, especially amid a string of polls showing they could have cause for concern. On Wednesday, a survey from The New York Times and Siena College showed Trump widening his lead against Biden at 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters.

And a separate poll released Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal showed Trump widening his lead over Biden to 6 points, up from 2 points since a similar February poll was conducted.  

For Democrats, the stakes couldn’t be higher.  

They already face a challenging map in the Senate, leading to growing expectations that Republicans will seize the upper chamber in November. And the postdebate polls indicate Biden is trailing in key battleground states he’ll need to win a second term.  

Those dynamics have put increasing pressure on party leaders to shore up House races and flip control of the lower chamber, to ensure there’s a check on Republican power if Trump returns to the White House. The dynamic could very well lead donors to begin shifting resources as members of the party calculate where to most effectively invest amid a tumultuous election cycle. 

It won’t be easy.   

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, lists 39 Democratic House seats as vulnerable, compared with 30 Republican seats. Overall, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s election forecaster currently gives Republicans a 66-percent chance of keeping the House in November.

A number of top Democrats in and out of Congress have already started to ramp up pressure on Biden to drop out.

“I would ask him to not run on behalf of the — not just the party, but the country, because there’s so much at stake,” former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told The Hill on Monday, when asked how he’d handle the issue if he was still in Congress. 

Following his comments, Ryan publicly called on Biden to withdraw in an op-ed. The former member of congress told The Hill that he’s “really disappointed that people aren’t being more vocal about it,” arguing that keeping Biden as the Democratic candidate “risks us winning the House.” 

On Wednesday, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) became the second House Democrat to call on Biden to exit the race. Grijalva represents a safe district for Democrats, but other House members running in more competitive races have also sought distance from the incumbent.

“Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise,” Golden wrote in an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News. “It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.” 

Golden represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which Trump won by 7 points in 2020. The Democrat is currently favored to win the seat, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s election forecaster.

Frisch, who’s running for the open seat in Colorado’s red-leaning 3rd Congressional District, became one of the first candidates to urge Biden to drop out. 

“I thank President Biden for his years of service, but the path ahead requires a new generation of leadership to take our country forward,” Frisch said Tuesday.

Added to Democrats’ woes, the election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics shifted its ratings for two states, moving Michigan from “leans Democratic” to “toss up” and moving the more reliably blue Minnesota from “likely Democratic” to “leans Democrat.” Democrats are defending at least four swing districts between the two states.  

Most members have not staked out a clear position on Biden’s future, careful not to get ahead of the Biden campaign while also acknowledging the tumultuous path that lies ahead for him after the debate.  

Still, some are expressing openness to another option — if it becomes available.  

“I think it is fair to say that the vice president makes a very compelling case as to why Donald Trump is a threat and is unfit to be president, particularly as it relates to democracy and voting, voting rights and reproductive freedom, and those are going to be incredibly important arguments in this election,” said one vulnerable House Democrat, when asked if they would feel more at ease with Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4754815-joe-biden-donald-trump-debate-jared-golden-marie-gluesenkamp-perez/

Russian armour-piercing tank rounds to be made in India, Rostec says

 Russia's vast state-owned Rostec corporation said on Thursday that its weapons export unit had organised the production in India of armour-piercing rounds for Russian-made battle tanks.

Rostec issued its statement ahead of a July 8-9 visit to Russia by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will hold talks with President Vladimir Putin.

The "Mango" projectiles that will be made in India are designed to be fired from the guns of T-72 and T-90 tanks which India's land forces use, Rostec said.

"The rounds allow you to hit modern tanks equipped with combined protection. Various modifications of these combat vehicles are in service with India," it said in its statement.

Rostec said it also had plans to localise the production of gunpowder in India as part of the Indian government's drive to have more foreign goods made in India.

Moscow has long supplied the Indian military with equipment.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/russian-armour-piercing-tank-rounds-110631183.html

Trump allies intensify Harris attacks as Biden replacement talk builds

Donald Trump's campaign and some of his allies have launched a pre-emptive political strike on Vice President Kamala Harris, moving swiftly to try to discredit her amid talk among some of her fellow Democrats that she might replace President Joe Biden atop the party's 2024 presidential ticket.

On social media and in a flurry of statements over the past 48 hours, Trump's campaign and his Republican allies appear to be laying the groundwork for an all-out assault on Harris should the 81-year-old Biden decide to end his re-election bid following his feeble debate performance last week.

While Biden has insisted he is not quitting the race four months before the Nov. 5 election, and Harris has stood firmly behind him, the Trump campaign has little to lose by attacking the vice president now, so that if Harris does emerge as the nominee, she might do so in a weakened state.

Republicans have regularly criticized Harris, 59, during Biden's term in office, but the attacks this week represented a sharp and seemingly coordinated escalation that appeared to be linked to increased talk about her possibly replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which oversees House Republican races, called her Biden's "enabler in chief."

MAGA Inc, a fundraising super PAC supporting Trump, released a statement calling her the "invasion czar." In March 2021 Biden said Harris would lead efforts with Mexico and Central American nations to address illegal immigration.

Republicans have seized on that to accuse her of failing to stem the flow of millions of migrants crossing illegally into the United States, although she was never directly responsible for securing the southern border.

"Kamala Harris is incompetent. She's proven to be the weakest, worst vice president in history, and she has 100% supported Joe Biden in every single disastrous policy that he has implemented over the last four years," said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.

Trump disparaged Harris in a video recorded at one of his golf courses, published by The Daily Beast on Wednesday, saying Harris was "so bad, she's so pathetic" before using an expletive to describe her.

Biden campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said, "No, Donald. What is bad is taking away women’s rights; What is bad is losing an election and encouraging a violent mob to attack the Capitol."

In a more public attack, Trump took to his Truth Social social media platform on Thursday to mock Harris for her poor performance in the Democratic primaries in 2020 while calling her a "highly talented politician."

PROUD RUNNING MATE

The Biden campaign pushed back against the escalating Republican criticism of Harris without addressing the question of whether the vice president is waiting in the wings.

"Vice President Harris is proud to be President Biden's running mate," said Rhyan Lake, a campaign spokesperson for Harris. "No matter what false attacks Trump and his extreme allies make, she will continue to defend the Biden-Harris record and prosecute the case against Donald Trump."

The swipes at Harris by Trump's camp were reminiscent of a similar tactic that the Republican Trump, president from 2017-2021, used to successfully undermine Ron DeSantis, his main Republican rival, before the Florida governor jumped into their party's 2024 election primary race last year.

Corey Lewandowski, a longtime Trump adviser, told Reuters Harris was politically vulnerable given her role in addressing illegal immigration, among other issues that are part of extensive research the party has gathered on her record.

TRUMP'S UNUSUAL SILENCE

A former senior staffer in the Trump White House who is still in contact with the Trump campaign said the newfound emphasis on Harris made sense.

"If Joe Biden stays on top of the ticket, given what we've seen, she takes on even more importance. But if he does step aside, she's the potential candidate. This is about defining her," the staffer said, pointing to her low approval ratings in public opinion polls.

Despite her low ratings, a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this week showed Harris to be as formidable an opponent to Trump as Biden. In a hypothetical matchup, Trump led Harris by a single percentage point, 43% to 42%.

Even before the June 27 debate, the Trump campaign was beginning to turn its attention to Harris, releasing an attack ad online that mocked her for repeating lines in her speeches.

An online meme promoted by Republicans showed Harris repeating the same phrase "unburdened by what has been" again and again in remarks.

Harris' defenders say she has become more of a target because of her leading role in attacking Trump over abortion rights and her vigorous defense of Biden on the campaign trail.

If Biden were to exit the race before the Democratic National Convention in August, there is no guarantee Harris would be the nominee. But as vice president, she likely would be first in line. She would benefit from Biden's immense campaign war chest and likely see a large segment of Democrats rally around her in a bid to avoid a bitter intra-party battle.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-allies-intensify-harris-attacks-100305846.html