US-led coalition forces said they have killed Turki al-Bin’ali, the Islamic State' self-proclaimed “Grand Mufti” or chief cleric, in an air strike in Syria on May 31. Bin’ali was one of Islamic State's most visible preachers and appeared regularly in its propaganda videos. He was placed under U.S. sanctions for helping Islamic State recruit foreign fighters, according to the U.S. Treasury according to Reuters.
Amid rumors that The White House is "weighing" the replacement of Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and the collapse in bookies' odds of him making to the end of the year, today's press briefing could well be his last...
According to Bloomberg, the White House is weighing "whether to move Press Secretary Sean Spicer into a more senior role focused on strategy" and bring in a new spokesman for the president, two people familiar with the discussions said.
In what is being hailed as a "major speech," which means just about nothing to ordinary Americans living outside the D.C. bubble, House Speaker Paul Ryan is expected to call for permanent tax reform in 2017 in remarks to be delivered to the National Association of Manufacturers. According to the Washington Examiner, Ryan will report that the GOP intends to introduce and pass a joint tax bill in the fall of this year.
"We are going to get this done in 2017. We need to get this done in 2017. We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip."
Brazil's landmark labor reform bill, intended to relax the country's restrictive labor laws and a main plank of embattled President Michel Temer's efforts to bolster investment and pull the economy out of its worst recession ever and widely seen as the country's second most important reform agenda after the Pension bill, was unexpectedly rejected by a special committee in Brazil's senate, with 10 votes against it, 9 in favor and 1 abstention.
Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,
Every day brings another scary headline from the Middle East — which makes it easy to treat them as background noise rather than a clear and present danger. But the latest batch is reminiscent of the Balkans circa 1914, which means it may be time to tune back in. Some examples:
A US Navy jet shot down a Syrian warplane. Syria is a Russian client state, so this puts the US and Russia on opposite sides in a shooting war.