KYIV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his government on Thursday to keep a tight rein on spending in

The average composite score on the ACT college admissions test dropped to their lowest levels since 1991, according to data released this week.

Syria’s Information Ministry has canceled the BBC’s media accreditation, accusing the British public broadcaster of biased and fake news in its coverage of the war-torn country

In video circulating on social media, air defence systems can be seen shooting down missiles.

The Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state is reportedly weighing a racketeering indictment against the former president and others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could rely on evidence tied to Mr Trump’s infamous call to the state’s top elections official to “find” votes for him, as well as the breach of voting machines by a group of Trump-connected operatives, according to The Guardian, citing two people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors are reportedly reviewing a racketeering indictment including statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass. An indictment is expected within the first two weeks of August. The office has been investigating efforts to overturn election results in the state and the baseless allegations of widespread election fraud that fuelled them, adding to a long list of investigations and other legal consequences facing the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination for president and his allies who rejected 2020 results. Ms Willis’s investigation is separate from the federal probe under US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating a broader effort from Mr Trump and his allies to reverse election results in states Mr Trump lost to Joe Biden, culminating in a pressure campaign around Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral college results during a joint session of Congress on 6 January, 2021. A grand jury in the Fulton County case was seated on 11 July. Ms Willis has made a career out of high-profile cases involving charges of racketeering– typically used to break up organised crime – including indictments against more than two dozen people connected to a sprawling Atlanta hip-hop empire, 38 alleged gang members, and 25 educators accused of cheating Atlanta’s public school system. Georgia’s racketeering statute requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” with a pattern predicated on at least two other “qualifying” crimes. Evidence in the case is unlikely to be revealed until an indictment is unsealed, but a charge involving influences witnesses could look to Mr Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Mr Trump suggested that he “find” him 11,780 votes – enough to swing the election in the state. For the computer trespass charge, in which prosecutors would need to show that defendants used a computer or network without permission to interfere with a program or data, prosecutors could turn to the breach of voting machines in Coffee County. That breach involved a group of people working under former Trump-connected attorney Sidney Powell to copy voting machine data at the county’s election office. That data from Dominion Voting Systems machines was uploaded to a password-protected website in a spurious, failed effort to prove that the 2020 election was rigged against Mr Trump. The Independent has requested comment from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. Roughly one year into her investigation, Ms Willis took the unusual step of asking for a special grand jury to rely on its subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses who otherwise would not be willing to talk with prosecutors. That special grand jury was seated in May 2022 and concluded its work in January 2022 after hearing from roughly 75 witnesses before dissolving in January. A partially released report from the special grand jury shows that jurors unanimously agreed that “no widespread fraud took place” in Georgia’s election following interviews with election officials, analysis and poll workers. Mr Trump also faces criminal charges in Manhattan stemming from hush money payments allegedly made to silence stories about his alleged affairs in the lead up to the 2016 election. Mr Trump and his adult children also face a likely trial from a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General’s office alleging a years-long fraud operation. A federal judge in Florida has also set a trial date of 20 May, 2024 on charges surrounding the alleged mishandling and illegal retention of dozens of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property. The former president has repeatedly characterised the multiple investigations against him, including the January 6 probe, as a politically motivated “hoax” and an attempt to “steal” the 2024 election from him. On 23 July, Mr Trump published several posts on his social network Truth Social, once again calling the special prosecutor “deranged”. He claimed that investigations into him were a “coordinated HOAX,” pointing to the probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. Mr Trump also went after President Joe Biden, claiming without providing evidence that he’s a “criminal” before going on to call him “the most corrupt and incompetent President in United States history”. “Get smart, Republicans, they are trying to steal the Election from you!” he wrote before referring to Democrats and federal and state prosecutors as “monsters” who are “destroying our country”. Read More Trump classified documents trial will be six months before 2024 election as Jan 6 cases close in - latest Who is Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who could take down Trump Georgia grand jury sworn in to consider Trump charges over attempts to upend 2020 election Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained

Thailand’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest level in eight years to anchor inflation

After years of speculation and observation, residents of a leafy section of Brooklyn managed to discover that a veteran New York police officer was behind a string of bizarre littering incidents on a street in Greenpoint. “Now, I’m sure we all have random papers in our weekly recycling bin,” one resident wrote on the local site Greenpointers. “But I need to stress to those who have yet to experience this phenomenon with their own eyes the SHEER VOLUME of papers floating down the street. It looks like the work of someone with an enormous collection of old books who spends their weekend tearing apart pages before scattering them in the wind.” Residents told Gothamist that for years on end, they would wake to find find pile after pile of meticulously sliced book pages strewn across Noble Street, ranging from selections of the Bible to 1970s porn magazines to a book on Greco-Roman art. “Sometimes things would be underlined or highlighted on the pages, and we would try to figure out if there was a message,” former block association president Molly FitzSimons told the outlet. “We really could not imagine who would do this … It was just this shadowy mystery.” “It made me just feel compassion for this person who clearly was processing something difficult.” Others didn’t take so kindly to the document dumps. Neighbours began actively trying to catch the person they dubbed the “book bandit,” with one resident deploying their surveillance camera to the effort, and another arranging for a private security firm to stake out the street in the hopes of catching the serial litterer. Security footage obtained by WNYC shows the man in action, driving slowly in the dark and dumping an armful of paper into the road. Eventually, the citizen efforts helped yield a licence plate number, prompting the NYPD to investigate Sergeant John Trzcinski, a veteran officer who joined the force in 1994 and earned $177,516, according to public records. When asked about the littering allegations, the NYPD directed The Independent to a database of disciplinary actions, which showed Sergeant Trzcinski was disciplined on 30 May for littering, losing a vacation day. The Independent has contacted the officer and the police union for comment. The city Department of Sanitation confirmed to Gothamist that Sergeant Trzcinski, who lives in Long Island, hasn’t been fined for littering or illegal dumping. Litterers need to be caught in the act by police or sanitation personnel, and the bundles of papers Sergeant Trzcinski left in the street weren’t large enough to qualify as illegal dumping. Sergeant Trzcinski has been awarded multiple awards for police service, and hasn’t been previously disciplined, according to public records. Read More Veteran police official Edward Caban becomes first Latino to head the NYPD Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect named as Rex Heuermann after arrest for Long Island murders New York City's Rikers Island, facing possible federal takeover, found violating safety standards

By David Shepardson U.S. automakers and union negotiators offered little hope a deal would be reached on Thursday

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, an influential voice who called for aggressive interest-rate hikes

Jeffrey Hernandez was rescued and hospitalized for a leg injury before being charged with trespass and criminal mischief

Tennessee Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson raised $1.3 million for a 2024 U.S. Senate bid fueled by the failed Republican attempt to expel her

Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for following the deadly fires in Maui, and the state's governor is urging people to file missing persons reports to aid investigators.