Alex Jones Makes First Statements

Victory: Infowars Wins Court Battle To Stay Open

Support https://t.co/c7Lo59AJZ5 pic.twitter.com/KURytpyMQh

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 15, 2024

The results of todays Infowars bankruptcy hearing are in. pic.twitter.com/x9lyobxMER

— Rob Dew (@DewsNewz) June 14, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he is ready to make a ceasefire deal with Ukraine, but gave a list of demands for a deal Kyiv was unsatisfied with.

Russia has had the upper hand in its two-year war against Ukraine, making gains along eastern Europe and exhausting Ukrainian force’s manpower and armaments. Putin would order a ceasefire in Ukraine and start peace negotiations, so long as Kyiv withdraws all of its forces from four major regions in Eastern Ukraine and surrenders them to Russia, according to Russian state media.

“Today we are making another concrete, real peace proposal,” Putin said, according to Russian-state media. “If Kyiv and Western capitals refuse it … this is their business, their political and moral responsibility to continue the bloodshed. Obviously, the realities on the ground, on the line of engagement will continue to change, and not in favor of the Kiev regime. The conditions for the start of negotiations will change.”

Putin also made other demands, including that Kyiv recognize Crimea — a region of Ukraine annexed by Russia in 2014 — as Russian territory.

He said Ukraine must remain a non-nuclear country, limit its military forces and abandon its goal of joining the NATO alliance; Western nations also must lift their sanctions against Russia, according to The Associated Press.

Kyiv immediately rejected the deal on Friday, citing that the terms of the deal were “manipulative” and “absurd” and meant to “mislead the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a just peace, and split the unity of the world majority,” according to the AP.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted the deal at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Italy on Friday, per Reuters.

“These are ultimatum messages that are no different from messages from the past,” Zelenskyy said on the sidelines of the summit, claiming that Russia would not abide by the agreement even if Kyiv accepted it, according to Reuters.

“He will not stop. It is the same thing that Hitler used to do … This is why we should not trust these messages.”

The U.S. and West have rallied behind Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in 2022, providing political, economic and military support; the U.S. alone has provided roughly $175 billion in aid for Ukrainian and European security.

Even with Western aid, however, Ukraine has struggled to repel Russian forces, which have largely recovered their losses initially sustained in the war.

A federal judge has blocked President Biden’s expansion of Title IX in four states, calling the mandatory gender identity protections an “abuse of power.”

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty granted a preliminary injunction on Thursday, and referred to the Biden administration’s unilateral Title IX changes as a “threat to democracy.”

“This case demonstrates the abuse of power by executive federal agencies in the rulemaking process,” Doughty said in his ruling. “The separation of powers and system of checks and balances exist in this country for a reason.”

Doughty ruled that the changes were inadmissible because the term “gender discrimination” as used in the establishment of Title IX “only included discrimination against biological males and females at the time of enactment.”

Doughty ruled that the changes were inadmissible because the term “gender discrimination” as used in the establishment of Title IX “only included discrimination against biological males and females at the time of enactment.”

The ruling blocks implementation of the changes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.

Title IX is a longstanding civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools and other education centers that receive federal funding.

Under the administration’s new rules, sex discrimination would include discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation.

Read the Judge’s Ruling.

The latest update, from April, expands the definition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — a move that critics say would undermine hard-won protections for women and girls.

A school would not be able to separate or treat people differently based on sex, except in limited circumstances, under the provisions.

Critics say that the change will allow locker rooms and bathrooms to be based on gender identity.

LGBTQ+ students who face discrimination would be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.

Advocates have hailed the change as necessary to protect transgender students. The rule is set to take effect Aug. 1.

Lawsuits against the Biden administration’s changes — similar to the Louisiana case — are underway in states across the country.

The Justice Department will not prosecute U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt, according to a letter sent from the agency to House Speaker Mike Johnson Friday.

The House voted Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

“Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte told Johnson in a letter.

In 2019 the DOJ also declined to bring charges against then Attorney General Bill Barr after a House vote to hold him in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Uriarte noted that the DOJ provided lawmakers with Hur’s report without any additional redactions and facilitated his congressional testimony. It also produced transcripts of Hur’s interview with Biden and other materials.

“Notwithstanding the Department’s efforts to accommodate the Committees’ requests and the Committees’ lack of a sufficient need for the audio files that would further a legitimate congressional purpose, and despite the President’s directive, on May 16, 2024, the Committees adopted resolutions recommending that the House of Representatives (House) cite the Attorney General for contempt,” he wrote.

The 216-207 vote, with Republican Rep. Dave Joyce of Ohio voting against, came after months of digging by House Republicans to try to bring into public view as much material from the special counsel interview as possible. They argued the audio could provide critical context about Biden’s state of mind.

Democrats, meanwhile, have dismissed the request as a partisan attempt to politicize the Department of Justice.

Hur concluded that no criminal charges were warranted in Biden’s handling of classified documents but also said the 81-year-old president presented himself “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and that “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

After Wednesday’s vote, Garland said he was disappointed the House used its authority as a “partisan weapon.”

“Today’s vote disregards the constitutional separation of powers, the Justice Department’s need to protect its investigations and the substantial amount of information we have provided to the Committees,” he said. “I will always stand up for this Department, its employees, and its vital mission to defend our democracy.”

Donald Trump marked his 78th birthday on Friday night by addressing a fawning crowd in Florida, promising to crack down hard on the U.S.-Mexico border and repeatedly dismissing his opponent in November’s election, President Joe Biden, as too frail to handle a second term.

The former president elicited strong cheers by listing his now-familiar campaign plans, including discussing immigration in menacing terms, pledging to protect gun rights and reduce regulations, scrap environmental protections to stimulate domestic energy production and cutting taxes — which he argued could further tame inflation.

“Our country is being destroyed by incompetent people,” Trump said. And, as he officially moved to age 78 compared to the 81-year-old Biden, he laced into the president as being confused: “All presidents should have aptitude tests.”

Trump addressed “Club 47” fan club members at a convention center in West Palm Beach, a short drive from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. As part of the festivities, organizers brought out a towering, multi-layered cake as audience members tossed red and blue balloons.

Setting on a gold-colored base, the cake featured separate tiers that included a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap and the Club 47 logo, an American flag, the phrase “Born in the USA on Flag Day,” a depiction of Trump golfing and the Oval Office fitted gold frames common in many Trump properties as well as Trump and Republican logos.

When Trump took the stage, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” and chanted “USA! USA!” The event in Trump’s adopted home state is sold out of 5,000 tickets at about $35 apiece, with closer spots to the stage costing $60, according to Club 47 President Larry Snowden.

“This is the biggest birthday party I’ve ever had,” Trump said.

Before Trump took the stage, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Byron Donalds, both Florida Republicans, helped warm up the crowd, gushing about Trump and his prospects for winning back the White House.

Kate Middleton will attend the time-honored Trooping the Colour parade this weekend, in what will be her first public appearance since she announced she’s battling cancer, she said in an emotional statement Friday.

The 42-year-old mother of three, who revealed she was undergoing chemotherapy for an unspecified form of cancer in March, said there are “good days and bad days” in her recovery — but that she’s well enough to attend the annual ceremony Saturday.

“I am making good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are
good days and bad days,” she said in a statement.

“On those bad days you feel weak, tired and you have to give in to your body resting. But on the good days, when you feel stronger, you want to make the most of feeling well.”

While she plans to attend the parade honoring the king’s birthday, she admitted she’s sometimes drained by the illness and still actively fighting it.

“I’m looking forward to attending The King’s Birthday Parade this weekend with my family
and hope to join a few public engagements over the summer, but equally knowing I am not
out of the woods yet.”

When gauging whether she’s up for her royal duties, Middleton said, she must tune in to what her body can handle.

“I am learning how to be patient, especially with uncertainty. Taking each day as it comes,
listening to my body, and allowing myself to take this much-needed time to heal,” she said.

The Princess of Wales spoke to King Charles personally to share the news that she plans to attend the parade, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told The Post.

“His Majesty is delighted that The Princess is able to attend tomorrow’s events, and is much looking forward to all elements of the day,” the spokesperson said.

Last week, the Princess of Wales apologized to the Irish Guards for missing a major rehearsal for the parade, which will feature over a thousand soldiers and horses along with a Royal Air Force flyover in London.

I have been blown away by all the kind messages of support and encouragement over the last couple of months. It really has made the world of difference to William and me and has helped us both through some of the harder times.

I am making good progress, but as anyone going… pic.twitter.com/J1jTlgwRU8

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) June 14, 2024

Middleton had been named the honorary Colonel of the Irish Guards, a position Charles appointed her to last year, before the illness was discovered during abdominal surgery in January.

Middleton has been largely out of the public eye since revealing her cancer diagnosis, and she “may never come back in the role that people saw her in before,” a source told Us Weekly earlier this month.

She is “re-evaluating what she’s going to be able to take on when she comes back” after undergoing preventive chemotherapy treatment, the source said.

Middleton shared her health woes with the world in a pre-recorded video on March 22 after speculation began swirling about why she had been noticeably absent from the public spotlight.

At the time, she said she was in the early stages of undergoing “a course of preventative chemotherapy.”

Airplane footage captured the moment Dr. Oz stepped in to help a passenger suffering a mid-flight medical emergency.

The TV doctor and one-time Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, 64, was seen tending to his fellow passenger during the health scare, reports TMZ.

Oz leapt into action on Friday around an hour into a flight from New York City to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

It is not the first time Oz has saved members of the public while travelling, as he was seen in 2021 saving a someone’s life as he used a defibrillator to jump-start a man’s heart at Newark Airport.

After Friday’s heroics, Oz told TMZ that he was on his way to a wedding when he heard flight attendants call through the plane asking if anyone on board was a medic.

The unwell flyer was reportedly falling in and out of consciousness during the journey.

Oz said he treated a ‘middle-aged healthy man’, and ‘did usual triage with physical exam and vital signs.’

‘After oxygen, OJ and time, he recovered and needs to have a detailed evaluation with his local physician,’ Oz added.

He said the orange juice was in case the passenger was fainting due to low blood sugar, and explained that ‘oxygen is the best drug we ever use.’

Witnesses told the outlet that Oz handed the passenger his phone number in case he needed it after they landed, but the doctor said the man appeared to be OK.

The heroics come three years after Oz stunned witnesses at Newark Airport when he saved a man’s life when they collapsed at baggage claim.

Oz sprung to the man’s safety after he reportedly flatlined inside the terminal.

The doctor ‘shocked him back to life as a huge crowd watched’, reported TMZ at the time, after a witness said his daughter called out for him to help.

In a statement to DailyMail.com at the time of the incident, Oz said he ‘performed CPR with the help of a Newark Port Authority police officer and cleared the man’s airway.’

The doctor reported that the man ‘was turning a horrible color and had foam coming out of his mouth when he started doing CPR.’

‘Thankfully, Newark Airport had a defibrillator nearby that we were able to use to save his life,’ he said.

‘As a physician and a human being, it’s our responsibility to jump in when there’s a medical emergency.’

Tupperware, the iconic American brand known the world over for its plastic food containers, is closing its last US factory.

The 78-tear-old company, who intially sold its products at parties thrown by surburban housewives, plans to take advantage of cheaper wages in Mexico.

The factory in the small town of Hemingway in South Carolina has produced billions of the kitchen-cabinet staples since it opened 48 years ago.

The closure – which was announced Thursday and will take effect later this year – is a huge blow to the 148 workers at the Williamsburg County plant.

Production will be moved to Lerma in Mexico, where the company says it already makes items for the US and Canada.

Tupperware was founded in 1946 by chemist Earl Tupper – whose airtight pastic containers helped food last longer for families still struggling after the war and the Great Depression. It quickly became the go-to name for any plastic container.

It opened the South Carolina factory in April 1976 to meet demand east of the Mississippi River as the company rapidly grew.

After Tupperware threatened to relocate to Tennessee in 1993, the state offred tax breaks – and the company stayed.

The company stayed, and the number of workers grew to 1,300.

By then, the 900-000 square food plant was producing 173 million tubs and containers made of Tupperware’s trademark colorful plastic.

As big box retailers offered their own versions, sales dipped and there were layoffs – 300 in 1996 and 250 in 2005, according to the local Post & Courier.

The layoffs follow a tough year for the 80 year old company, which is headquartered in Orland, Florida.

In April, Tupperware warned it had ‘substantial doubt’ it could sty in business due to waning demand for its plastic containers and mounting debt. In a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the firm said it was in a ‘challenging financial condition’.

That announcement came just days after the New York Stock Exchange said that Tupperware’s stock was at risk of being delisted because the company had failed to file the mandatory annual report.

Bosses say they will offer early retirement and a payoff to eligible staff, plus try to find them work at other local businesses.

‘It’s important to note this decision is not a reflection of the performance of the Hemingway team,’ the company said in a statement to DailyMail.com.

‘The compnay has always been a business focused on people, so we will take important steps to take care of our Hemingway team.’

Tupperware had sold the Hemmingway plant last fall to a real estate investment company for $15 million, and then leased it back.

After Earl Tupper founded the company in in 1946, its products soared in popularity throughout the 1950s.

This was thanks in part to its iconic ‘Tupperware parties’, in which a salesperson would visit somebody’s home to demonstrate and sell the containers.

Those parties have captured the popular imagination ever since.

For example, Dixie Longate is a drag queen persona known as ‘Tupperware Lady’. She is played by the actor Kris Andersson and known for her comic skits in which she sells the plastic wares.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided a boost in Tupperware sales as families stayed indoors and cooked more meals at home.

Since then, the company has suffered from poor sales and accrued increasing debt, causing its share price to slide to its lowest-ever levels.

It was trading at $1.50 on Friday, down from a high of almost $100 in 2013.

The company first raised substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern nearly a year ago.

Since then, it appointed consumer goods industry veteran Laurie Ann Goldman as its CEO.

According to multiple social media posts, Hezbollah’s number two commander has been taken out in an airstrike in Lebanon.

Watch:

According to Egyptian news, Hezbollah’s number two leader, Hashim Safi al-Din was eliminated in an airstrike in Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/T2o22BFTGq

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) June 14, 2024

Al Din had worked his way up the ranks of the political party/militant group:

Hashim Safi Al Din (born 1964) is a Lebanese Shia cleric, senior Hezbollah official and a maternal cousin of the secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. He is the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, a Lebanese political part that has a wide Lebanese support and big representation in the parliament. Hezbollah is affiliated by military action and activities known as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon which was created in 1982 against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Hashim is generally considered the “number two” in Hezbollah.

So far this is still Unconfirmed, but Egyptian Media Sources are beginning to report that tonight’s Israeli Strike on the Town of Janta in Southern Lebanon has resulted in the Elimination of Hashim Safi Al Din, the Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and the most Senior… pic.twitter.com/qUuCYeCQvC

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 13, 2024

So far this is still Unconfirmed, but Egyptian Media Sources are beginning to report that tonight’s Israeli Strike on the Town of Janta in Southern Lebanon has resulted in the Elimination of Hashim Safi Al Din, the Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and the most Senior Official in Hezbollah besides Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah has had repeated clashes with Israel as the Jewish state wars with Hamas. Israel has already responded before the latest news by taking another of their leaders, Taleb Sami Abdullah.

Hezbollah had ratcheted up tensions Wednesday by firing over 200 rockets into Israel:

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has fired multiple barrages of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike which killed one of its senior commanders.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly identified more than 200 projectiles that crossed the border on Wednesday. Some triggered fires, but no casualties were reported.

It came as a top Hezbollah official vowed that the Iran-backed group would increase the intensity, force and quantity of its attacks.

He was speaking at the funeral of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the field commander targeted in a strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday night.

#BREAKING: An Israeli strike on a two-story building in Janta, Southern Lebanon, has resulted in the deaths of 14 members of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The strike resulted in the death of Hashim Safi Al Din, the Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council… pic.twitter.com/LBN1ecns2R

— Breaking News (@TheNewsTrending) June 14, 2024

After the Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah official Abdullah, leaders were scared they were next:

“The powerful elimination worries Hezbollah members. They now understand that the IDF knows much more about them than we do. Additionally, the operation indicates that Hezbollah’s field security is not airtight and that the organization’s intelligence system has been penetrated to such an extent that we were able to eliminate such an important sector commander. The IDF managed to infiltrate their networks and systems and identify the right people for elimination,” says Professor Amatzia Baram, suggesting that this also impacts the leader of the terrorist organization.

Infowars radio host Alex Jones will have his personal assets liquidated to help pay a massive $1.5 billion debt he owes for making false claims about the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.

Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, could also be shuttered in a separate bankruptcy. “Watch Live! Will This Be The Final Day of Infowars Transmissions?” read the top headline on the Infowars website on Friday morning.

In court on Friday, Judge Christopher Lopez approved converting Jones’ bankruptcy to a liquidation, according to the Associated Press. While Jones has initially filed for bankruptcy protection to reorganize, he recently requested permission to liquidate his assets instead.

Jones personal assets are valued at about $9 million, while his company has about $4 million in cash on hand, according to the AP. He has already begun the process of selling his $2.8 million Texas ranch, a gun collection, and other assets, the AP reported.

In court documents, lawyers for the Sandy Hook victims’ families have accused Jones of engaging in “apparent financial gymnastics” and a “Hail Mary attempt” to funnel money from his creditors to himself and his parents.

The families are also calling for Jones’ X account to be included in the bankruptcy. Jones has 2.3 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.

In a video rant filmed while he was driving to court on Friday morning, Jones said that taking away his X account is “totally ridiculous” and would violate the social-media site’s terms of service. “It is personal, and you can’t take it away from somebody in a lawsuit,” he said.

Jones faces the massive judgement for falsely claiming that the shooting and killing of 20 young children and six adults at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut was a hoax staged by crisis actors to gin up opposition to gun rights. Family members said they were subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers, some of whom claimed that the kids who were killed never existed.

“Every single one of these families were drowning in grief, and Alex Jones put his foot right on top of them,” Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, said in 2022.

Jones has since acknowledged that the massacre occurred, though he now claims that the families are pawns in a globalist plan to silence him. During his Friday morning video, he claimed that the federal government “uses the Sandy Hook people as front people.”

“I didn’t kill those kids, ladies and gentlemen,” he said of the Sandy Hook victims. “I barely ever talked about them. I covered the internet questioning the shooting.”

He claimed that desperate globalists are trying to silence him because they are “planning something big” ahead of the 2024 election, mentioning civil unrest, World War III, “total economic collapse,” and even a possible assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

“This is all war-gamed, all planned,” he said. “They don’t want me on the air during this, because I’ve got their number.”

Speaking to the media on Friday, Jones said he’s a victim of “lawfare and the weaponization of the legal system.” While Judge Lopez has been “fair,” he said, lawyers for the Sandy Hook families are using the bankruptcy process to “torture me and harass me.”

“This is probably the end of Infowars here, very, very, soon — if not today, the next few weeks or months,” Jones said. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”

If Jones loses ownership of his companies, it’s possible they could be purchased by supporters. According to the AP, Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, has 44 employees and made nearly $3.2 million in April selling various items.

In addition to his broadcast, Jones uses his Infowars website to hawk books, clothes, survival gear, and supplements, such as fish oil, concentrated beet extract, “1776 Testosterone Boost,” and “Brain Force Ultra” — described as “your daily energy supercharge.”

In a loss for the Biden administration, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that a federal ban on “bump stocks,” gun accessories that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly, is unlawful.

In a 6-3 ruling on ideological lines, with the court’s conservatives in the majority, the court held that an almost 100-year-old law aimed at banning machine guns cannot legitimately be interpreted to include bump stocks.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a firearm equipped with the accessory does not meet the definition of “machinegun” under federal law.

The ruling prompted a vigorous dissent from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote in reference to bump stocks enabling semiautomatic rifles to operate like machine guns. Sotomayor also took the rare step of reading a summary of her dissent in court.

Even with the federal ban out of the picture, bump stocks will still not be readily available nationwide. Eighteen states have already banned them, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun-control group. Congress could also act.

Nevertheless, gun control advocates decried the ruling.

“We’ve seen bump stocks cause immense destruction and violence,” said Esther Sanchez-Gomez, litigation director at Giffords Law Center. “The majority of justices today sided with the gun lobby instead of the safety of the American people. This is a shameful decision.”

The Trump administration imposed the prohibition after the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, in which Stephen Paddock used bump stock-equipped firearms to open fire on a country music festival, initially killing 58 people. Then-President Donald Trump personally called for the accessory to be banned.

Sotomayor cited the Las Vegas shooting in her dissent.

“All he had to do was pull the trigger and press the gun forward. The bump stock did the rest,” she wrote.

The ruling, she added, “hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

In a concurring opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito, conceded that in practical terms, a weapon equipped with a bump stock is very similar to a machine gun and said Congress could act to ban the accessory.

The “horrible shooting spree” in Las Vegas showed how “a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun,” strengthening the case for legislative action, he added.

The Supreme Court in 2019 declined to block the regulation. The already conservative court has tilted further to the right since then, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020.

Conservatives now have a 6-3 majority that has backed gun rights in previous cases.

The National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 to regulate machine guns in response to Prohibition-era gangster violence.

The lawsuit was brought by Texas-based gun owner Michael Cargill, a licensed dealer who owned two bump stocks before the ban went into effect and later surrendered them to the government.

“Over five years ago I swore I would defend the Constitution of the United States, even if I was the only plaintiff in the case. I did just that,” he said in a statement responding to the ruling.

Bump stocks use the recoil energy of a trigger pull to enable the user to fire up to hundreds of rounds with what the federal government calls “a single motion.”

Cargill’s lawyers say it is a difficult skill to master.

Some gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, initially backed then-President Donald Trump’s move to regulate bump stocks after the Las Vegas shooting, but have since lined up in opposition to it.

The case does not implicate the scope of the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment. The challengers argue that the government does not have the authority to ban bump stocks under the 1934 law.

The 1968 Gun Control Act defined “machine gun” to include accessories “for use in converting a weapon” into a machine gun, and the ATF concluded that bump stocks meet that definition.

Much of the legal fight hinged on the definition of machine gun as a weapon that can automatically fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.”

The government argued that the phrase refers to the actions of the shooter, with a single action required to fire multiple shots. Cargill’s lawyers argued that it refers to the action inside the firearm when the trigger is engaged. Because a bump stock still requires the trigger to be engaged for each shot, it is not a machine gun, they argued.

The Supreme Court embraced Cargill’s argument, with Thomas writing that a firearm equipped with a bump stock does not become a machine gun because “it cannot fire more than one shot” with a single function of the trigger.

“ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns,” he added.

Lower courts were divided over the issue, with both the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit ruling that the ban was unlawful.

The Biden administration appealed in both cases, while gun rights advocates contested the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld the ban.

The Supreme Court has backed gun rights in cases directly addressing the scope of the Second Amendment, including the 2022 ruling that found there is a right to carry a handgun outside the home.

But in a case argued in November, the court indicated it might stop short of striking down some long-standing gun laws in a case involving a ban on possessing firearms by people accused of domestic violence.

President Biden has been “losing focus” during discussions at this week’s G7 summit in Italy, with one diplomatic insider saying the commander-in-chief is “the worst he has ever been.”

Another attendee from a non-US delegation told the Sun Friday that the 81-year-old’s public missteps on the first day of the gathering were “embarrassing.”

Biden has joined the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies — including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — for the annual meeting to discuss their nations’ economic and security priorities.

However, the president has stolen the spotlight with a series of bizarre actions, including giving Meloni an awkward salute upon greeting her Thursday and wandering away from his fellow leaders during a skydiving demonstration, forcing the host prime minister to chaperone him back to the group.

Biden apparently got off on the wrong foot with Meloni before the summit even began Thursday morning, keeping the Italian prime minister waiting 20 minutes before arriving, according to public broadcaster RAI.

When the president did appear, Meloni reportedly chided him in an apparent attempt at humor, telling Biden: “You shouldn’t leave a woman waiting like this.”

The Sun also reported that Biden had shown moments of clarity while discussing urgent matters with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the European Union.

That is in line with The Post’s understanding from White House staffers that Biden, who would be 86 years old if he completes a full second term in January 2029, has at points lost his focus in private conversations.

White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates described the Sun report as “lies” Friday and touted Biden’s “successful leadership overseas advancing our national security.”

Bates also insisted that The Post and other outlets had reported on a distorted version of the video of Biden walking away from the skydiving demonstration, saying the president was giving “a thumbs up” and saying “congratulations” to another skydiver just out of the video’s frame.

However, Sunak told reporters Friday that the choreography of the ceremony called for Biden to join his fellow leaders.

“He just went over to kind of talk to all of them individually and Georgia [Meloni] was saying, ‘Don’t worry, they’re all coming to [us],’” the British prime minister said.

“We were meant to line up so they could come and then shake all our hands.”

Sunak also defended the American president, saying Biden was “all right” and was “being very polite” to the military members who took part in the demonstration.

Biden also skipped a dinner held for the G7 leaders at a luxury hotel in southern Italy later Thursday evening.

“There’s going to be a lot of meetings happening, a lot of sessions, as you know,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday in excusing Biden’s absence. “And so, the President is certainly going to be engaged for the — the two days — or two — two — two and a half days that he is in Italy at the G7. So, I wouldn’t read too much into him not going to one dinner.”

The summit has been marked by the US signing a 10-year security agreement with Ukraine and the alliance agreeing to lend another $50 billion to Kyiv in its war effort against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had requested the assistance while attending the summit, and later joined Biden for a press conference to declare their joint opposition to Russian aggression.

Biden’s mental fitness is increasingly worrying to Democratic lawmakers and aides, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal said last week, with the president frequently caught reading off cheat sheets and resting his eyes in meetings.

“You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable,” one source who was in discussions earlier this year over a $95 billion national security package with military aid for Ukraine told the outlet.

A shocking 86% of voters — including 73% of Democrats — believe Biden is too old to finish a second term, an ABC News/Ipsos poll found in February.

First lady Jill Biden in March scoffed at the notion — floated by then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley — of politicians over the age of 75 being forced to take mental competency tests, calling it “ridiculous.”

Biden will square off with former President Donald Trump in their first presidential debate of the cycle June 27 on CNN.

Half of US voters expect the incumbent to forget where he is at some point during the verbal battle, and a third anticipate he will wander away offstage, a JL Partners poll released Thursday shows.

“From Italy to the United Kingdom to New York, millions of people around the world woke up to headlines about Crooked Joe Biden’s cognitive decline on full display at the G7 Summit,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Friday. “Biden was seen staring off into the distance and wandering around like a brain-dead zombie, and even had to be ushered by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“Our adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran are no doubt watching Biden’s obvious decline and plotting how they can continue to take advantage of our weak and incompetent Commander-in-Chief,” Leavitt added. “America cannot afford another four years with Crooked Joe at the helm. We need a tough leader with a bold vision to demand peace through strength, and that leader is President Donald J. Trump.”

President Biden embraced a surprised-looking Pope Francis with an intimate forehead-to-forehead hug on Friday during the second day of the G7 summit in Italy.

The 87-year-old pontiff had been wheeled into a room of world leaders to take part in a discussion of issues surrounding artificial intelligence, energy and the Africa-Mediterranean region. He is the first pope ever to attend a G7 gathering.

Watch:

¿Qué coño hace Biden con el Papa Francisco? Esta para encerrarlo en el basement hasta el día de las elecciones, como hicieron en 2020.pic.twitter.com/0Y8bRJYLVJ

— antiprogre.com (@antiprogrecom) June 14, 2024

Other leaders joining the discussion included Argentina President Javier Milei, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The 81-year-old Biden, America’s second Roman Catholic president, was scheduled to meet privately with Francis later Friday.

A senior administration official told reporters the president and pope were likely to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, and AI and climate change.

The sitdown will be Biden’s last major event before he departs the summit for the US to attend a Hollywood fundraiser hosted by actor George Clooney.

Former President Trump and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin met at Trump National Golf Club in Loudon County, Virginia, on Wednesday.

It was the first time the two leaders have met and comes as speculation continues to swirl around who Trump will select as his running mate.

DailyMail.com was told by a source familiar that they did not discuss Trump’s open vice presidential position, but rather about how to win Virginia in 2024.

The leaders specifically talked about strategy to win voters over including about honing in on the economy, inflation and the border crisis.

Trump has teased that he will announce his VP pick at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He told Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie on Thursday that his running mate was ‘probably’ in the room where he held a meeting with Senate GOP lawmakers, but that he would wait until the convention to announce.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is is the running along with Senators JD Vance, Ohio, Marco Rubio, Florida, Democrat-turned-Republican ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem have also been rumored to be on the list.

Scott, Rubio and Vance were all in the Republican meeting earlier in the day.

Trump also called Youngkin ‘great’ and said he would consider him for VP.

‘I think I could consider that. Yes. I haven’t, I haven’t been asked that question, but he would be on that list. He’s very good. We had a great meeting about Virginia,’ he told Hasnie.

And picking Youngkin could actually help him in the general election in just five months.

Recent polls have indicated that Virginia, a deeply purple state, could actually be in play for the presidential election.

In 2020, President Biden received 54 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 44 percent.

But according to a recent Roanoke College Institute survey, Biden and Trump are tied in Virginia at 48 percent.

Youngkin held out on endorsing the former president until after Super Tuesday in March.

He said in a post on X: ‘It’s time to unite around strong leadership and policies that grow our great nation, not four more years of President Biden.’

There was speculation that Youngkin would enter the 2024 race himself, but he put those theories to bed last year.

‘I’m not going anywhere’ he told reporters adding that he’s focused on the commonwealth.

It’s time to unite around strong leadership and policies that grow our great nation, not four more years of President Biden. pic.twitter.com/jnF1iFVRkk

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) March 7, 2024

Trump traveled into Washington, D.C., after his meeting with Youngkin to sit down with House and Senate lawmakers.

Behind closed doors at the House side Capitol Hill Club, he insisted the Russia-Ukraine war would not have happened under his watch and urged Republicans to get better about messaging on abortion.

The former president told a horde of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Vladimir Putin is ‘more afraid of him than Biden.’

In addition, he praised Republican ‘unity’ after a meeting in the Senate.

‘I just want to thank the Republican Senate, and I want to thank also the House we met, as you know, with the full House Republican House today and we had a tremendous meeting with them also.’

‘And there’s great unity very similar, different topics, actually, but not that different. And there’s one thing in common, we want to make America great again, we want to make our country great again, we’re a nation that’s in decline. We’re declining nation.’

Trump insisted that Republicans are ‘going to bring back our jobs’ and ‘common sense to government.’He added that there will be ‘strong borders’ and people will be able to enter the U.S. legally and not ‘pour in from prisons all over South America and all over the world.’

A Pentagon-funded company is seeking proposals to feed America’s soldiers lab-grown meat in a bid to “reduce the CO2 footprint” at Defense Department outposts.

BioMADE, a public-private company that has received more than $500 million in funding from the Defense Department, announced earlier this month that it is seeking proposals to develop “innovations in food production that reduce the CO2 footprint of food production at … DoD operational environments,” according to an online announcement.

These include “novel cell culture methods suitable for the production of cultivated meat/protein,” or lab-grown meat, a product that is still in its experimental phases. This type of meat is grown in a lab from animal cells with the aid of other chemicals, and has emerged as a flashpoint in debates about the efficacy and morality of manufacturing meat products without slaughtering animals.

BioMADE—which earlier this year received a $450 million infusion of taxpayer cash—maintains that lab-grown food products will reduce the Pentagon’s carbon footprint, a priority for the American military as it pursues a Biden administration-mandate to address climate change and other cultural issues that critics describe as “woke.”

“Innovations in food production that reduce the CO2 footprint of food production at and/or transport to DoD operational environments are solicited,” the company says in an informational document and accompanying press release. “These could include, but are not limited to, production of nutrient-dense military rations via fermentation processes, utilizing one carbon molecule (C1) feedstocks for food production, and novel cell culture methods suitable for the production of cultivated meat/protein.”

BioMADE is also soliciting proposals for “processes that convert greenhouse gasses” and “projects that develop bioproducts useful in mitigating the negative environmental impacts either regionally or globally,” including “bioproducts that can be used to prevent or slow coastal erosion.”

Critics of the DoD’s partnership with BioMADE say that U.S. troops should not be used as test subjects for lab-grown meat products that are still in their experimental phase.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund the lab-grown meat sector,” Jack Hubbard, executive director at the Center for the Environment and Welfare, a consumer group that analyzes emerging markets such as bioengineered meat. “Our troops deserve better than to be served lab-grown meat, produced in bioreactors with immortalized cells and chemicals.”

“Unfortunately,” Hubbard said, “this effort is being driven by an agenda that is political and anti-farmer. Our soldiers should never be used as guinea pigs.”

The Pentagon and its outside partners, as part of its push to fund “alt-protein projects,” made up to $2 million available for such projects, according to the publication Alt-Meat.

Supporters of these efforts say U.S. national security hinges on addressing global change and pursuing new technologies that enable products like lab grown meat.

“One of the most immediate, politically feasible, and high-impact ways to do this [address climate change] is for the U.S. government to invest in and accelerate alternative ways to produce meat,” Matt Spence, a former Defense Department official wrote in a 2021 Slate piece.

Recent studies, however, including one published by the University of California, Davis suggest that “lab-grown meat’s carbon footprint [is] potentially worse than retail beef.”

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” according to the report’s lead author, Derrick Risner, a member of UC Davis’s Department of Food Science and Technology. “If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

A Southwest Airlines Boeing plane experienced a rare Dutch roll at 32,000 feet in the air that resulted in significant damage to the aircraft that left it out of service, officials said.

Southwest Flight N8825Q, a Boeing 737 carrying 175 passengers, was traveling from Phoenix to Oakland on May 25 when its tail began to wag left and right, causing the plane’s wings to rock from side to side.

The phenomenon, known as a Dutch roll, caused major damage to the plane, but the pilots were able to regain control and land it safely in Oakland, according to the Federal Aviation Administration

No injuries were reported over the Dutch roll incident, which pilots are trained to counter and modern planes are built to combat with a yaw damper.

“The FAA is working closely with the [National Transportation Safety Board] and Boeing to investigate this event,” the agency said in a statement.

“We will take appropriate action based on the findings.”

A preliminary report from the FAA found that a power control unit on the plane, which provides backup power to the rudder, had been damaged.

Boeing and Southwest declined to comment on the incident, with the airline adding that it was cooperating with FAA investigators.

The incident is only the latest tied to a plane manufactured by Boeing, which continues to face mounting scrutiny over safety concerns.

At least 20 whistleblowers have come forward against the aerospace giant, which has faced a slew of criticism in recent years over repeated technical failures across the globe.

A scathing House Transportation and Infrastructure report in September 2020 found that two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 were the “horrific culmination” of “repeated and serious failures” by the company and regulators.

Then in January 2024, a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX-9 during a flight from Oregon to California, renewing safety concerns over the planes.

President Joe Biden’s ghostwriter deleted audio recordings from his interviews because he was concerned that he would be hacked and the audio would be widely circulated, according to a newly released transcript.

“I was very concerned about the possibility of being hacked. I was very concerned about the possibility of this audio spread all over the place,” Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter, told special counsel Robert Hur’s team on July 31, 2023.

Mr. Zwonitzer said his primary concern centered on “a lot of personal and emotional stuff about Beau,” President Biden’s deceased son, according to the heavily redacted transcript, which was obtained and released by The Heritage Foundation.

Mr. Hur, who was appointed to probe President Biden’s handling of classified documents, said in his final report that Mr. Zwonitzer deleted the recordings of discussions for the book “Promise Me, Dad,” even though the recordings “had significant evidentiary value.”

Prosecutors considered charging Mr. Zwonitzer but ultimately decided not to, in part because he handed over his computer and hard drive to investigators, who were able to recover the deleted recordings.

The transcript provides more details on how Mr. Zwonitzer handled the recordings, as well as what he told investigators about President Biden broaching the topic of classified materials.

Mr. Zwonitzer said that it’s his practice to delete all tapes he records after making transcripts of them. But he also said that he still has files from projects he carried out in 2018 and 2020 that he still had not deleted.

“I don’t have a set policy or anything” with regards to how long he takes before deleting files, Mr. Zwonitzer said.

He said he deleted the tapes of his interviews with President Biden in 2023 between the end of January and the end of February. Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Biden, appointed Mr. Hur in January 2023.

Mr. Zwonitzer said he was aware of Mr. Hur’s investigation when he deleted the recordings.

“I’m not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation,” he told members of Mr. Hur’s team and FBI special agents.

Mr. Zwonitzer said he received “vaguely threatening emails” after President Biden was nominated and that he learned some of the interviews he conducted with other people had been placed on the internet without his permission. That stoked fears of being hacked, and prompted him to take the files and slide them into the trash on his computer.

Mr. Hur’s team said prosecutors declined to prosecute Mr. Zwonitzer because the ghostwriter was forthright and the available evidence would not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Zwonitzer committed any crimes. Even if evidence supported prosecution, according to prosecutors, they would not have charged the writer because of the “significant cooperation” he provided.

Biden Discusses Classified Documents

Mr. Hur was appointed to probe the classified materials case, after the former vice president acknowledged keeping documents marked classified beyond his vice presidency.

In one Feb. 16, 2017, interview, Mr. Zwonitzer said the then-former Vice President Biden was reading from one of his journals when he said he needed to be careful “because he was worried that there was a possibility that some of this stuff could be classified,.”

President Biden would often read verbatim from his journals during the interviews, the writer said. When Mr. Zwonitzer asked to make photocopies of certain pages, President Biden refused.

“He declined that offer diplomatically but adamantly. It was clear these were personal journals and he didn’t want them out of his possession,” Mr. Zwonitzer said.

During the same interview, President Biden also said, “I think I found something downstairs,” the writer said. That document “had classified markings on it,” Mr. Zwonitzer said.

Mr. Hur said in his report that President Biden in 2017 said he had “found all the classified stuff downstairs” in Virginia, where the interview with Mr. Zwonitzer took place, and that the classified materials contained information about Afghanistan. Agents found those same documents in President Biden’s garage in Delaware in 2022.

President Biden never showed Mr. Zwonitzer any classified materials, according to the ghostwriter.

While Mr. Hur concluded that President Biden retained and disclosed classified documents after exiting the White House, Mr. Hur also opted not to charge President Biden because jurors might not convict him if the case was taken to trial.

“Several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges. For example, Mr. Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after,” Mr. Hur said. “This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully.”

Former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson has announced his first live tour, which will see him travel across the country for 15 different shows.

Carlson is a political commentator who hosted the talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight weeknights on Fox News until 2023. After his contract with the channel was terminated, he started hosting his show Tucker on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Now he is taking his live speaking tour nationwide, where he has invited various guests to join him on stage, including prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“Hey, it’s Tucker Carlson. The one thing we know for certain is the United States is going to be one intense place this fall moving into this presidential election. So we thought, what better time to hit the road and see the country, and we are going to this fall,” Carlson said in a video uploaded to X on June 10.

“We are pleased—in fact, thrilled—to announce Tucker Carlson Live which is what it sounds like: a nationwide tour and at every show will be joined by a friend, a special guest. Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Russell Brand and many others.”

It also reads on the official tour website: “It’s going to be interesting and fun as hell.”

Full List of Tucker Carlson Tour Dates and Guests

• Sept. 4, with Russell Brand – Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
• Sept. 5, with Vivek Ramaswamy – Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
• Sept. 6, with Tulsi Gabbard – Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
• Sept. 7, with Glenn Beck – Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Sept. 11, with Dan Bongino – BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• Sept. 12, with Megyn Kelly – T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Sept. 13, with Charlie Kirk – INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
• Sept. 16, with Alex Jones – Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• Sept. 18, special guest TBA – Fort Bend Epicenter in Rosenberg, Texas.
• Sept. 20, with Kid Rock – Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Sept. 21, special guest TBA – Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
• Sept. 24, with Roseanne Barr – Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
• Sept. 26, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – Bon Secours Arena in Greenville, South Carolina.
• Sept. 27, special guest TBA – Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida.
• Sept. 28, with Donald Trump Jr. – VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

Ticket Release Dates and Prices

At the time of writing presale tickets were being sold on Ticketmaster for the event in Phoenix, Anaheim, Tulsa, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Hershey, Fort Worth, Greenville and Jacksonville.

To access them, people have to “join team Tucker,” meaning paying a $6 monthly subscription to Carlson’s website.

“We’re building an alternative to legacy media. Team Tucker empowers us to do our job without fear. It’s time they stopped hiding the truth from you. We’ll expose them together,” it states.

General sale tickets for Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, Wichita, Rosenberg and Sunrise will go on sale at 10 am EDT on June 14.

The ticket prices have not yet been announced.

President Biden repeatedly watched his German shepherd Commander attack Secret Service members, who wished each other a “safe shift” as the number of incidents mounted — with one exasperated workplace safety professional urging the use of a muzzle, agency records show.

The number of dog attacks involving Commander, who the White House said in February was given away after more than two years of terrorizing professionals assigned to protect Biden; and former first dog Major, who was rehomed in 2021 after also attacking personnel; could top three dozen, the newly surfaced records suggest.

The 81-year-old president reportedly accused a Secret Service member of lying about being attacked by Major during his first year in office, but was present for at least three separate attacks involving Commander, files released to Judicial Watch under Freedom of Information Act litigation show.

A previously unreported incident on Sept. 12, 2023, featured a pair of bites in which Commander tore holes in a Secret Service member’s suit as Biden took him for a walk in the Kennedy Garden along the South Lawn of the White House.

The president “took Commander (on a leash) to the Kennedy Garden this evening for a walk,” the special agent assigned to the Presidential Protective Division wrote in a report.

“While [Biden] and Commander were in the Kennedy Garden I was standing half way from the Book-Sellers [lobby] and the Family Theater,” the agent wrote, referring to the area where the main White House connects to the East Wing.

“[Biden] opened the Book-Seller door and said [redacted]. As I started to walk toward him to see if he needed help, Commander ran through his legs and bit my left arm through the front of my jacket. I pulled my arm away and yelled no,” the victim wrote.

“[President Biden] also yelled [redacted] to Commander. [Biden] then [redacted]. I obliged and Commander let me pet him.”

“When turning to close the door,” the special agent went on, “Commander jumped again and bit my left arm for the second time. [Biden] again yelled at Commander and attached the leash to him. My suit coat has 3 holes, 1 being all the way through. No skin was broken.”

Photos included in the report show damage to the agent’s suit and dress shirt, for which they sought reimbursement.

The latest batch of internal agency records show mounting frustration over the handling of the animals.

On Sept. 25, 2023, following yet another attack involving Commander, a sergeant in the Secret Service’s uniformed division wrote an colleague: “FYI- there was a dog bite and the Officer may need to go to the hospital … Have a safe shift!” It’s unclear if Biden was present for that incident.

Two days later, an official in the agency’s Safety, Health & Environmental Division wrote: “Can we please find a way to get this dog muzzled.”

Biden’s personal presence during attacks was known in two prior instances.

On Oct. 2, 2022, Biden was there when Commander attacked an agent who was holding the door for the president as he approached the entryway near the Rose Garden that connects the West Wing to the rest of the White House.

“I was bit/grabbed on the left forearm,” the agent wrote in records made public in February.

“Commander came in first circled back and grabbed my left arm. He then stood up and back down. He is literally my height standing. [President Biden] entered shortly after since he was trailin [sic] behind him. [Biden] entered the Palm Room and said, ‘[redacted quote]’.”

Biden also was present on Dec. 11, 2022, when the president “requested to take Commander (on the leash) to the Kennedy Garden,” records show.

“Once at the KG, [Biden] took Commander off the leash to run free. I was present to observe [redacted] departing from the Kennedy Garden to move behind [redacted] toward the south ground drive via the internal garden gate when [the attack] occurred,” the victim wrote, describing a 1.5cm (half-inch) cut and bruising on his arm and a 1cm (0.4-inch) cut from a second bite on his hand and thumb.

Documents do not place President Biden on scene for the most severe attacks, including a Nov. 3, 2022, incident that sent a uniformed Secret Service officer to a DC hospital for treatment after Commander clamped down on their arm and thigh at the base of a stairwell at the White House.

At least one other Secret Service member was seen at a hospital, according to previously reported documents, when on July 29, 2023, Commander tore into a female agent’s arm at the president’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home, causing a “severe deep open wound” with loss of “a significant amount of blood,” requiring at least six stitches.

In yet another bloody attack, on June 15, 2023, Commander took an agent “to the ground” outside the East Wing, taking a “deep bite” to their arm, requiring an unspecified number of stitches.

In that case, “East Wing Tours were stopped for approximately 20 minutes due to blood from the incident being on the floors in the area of the [lobby connecting the East Wing to the White House].”

Commander’s biting spree was first reported by The Post last July, but was initially downplayed by the White House.

An artificial intelligence candidate is on the ballot for the United Kingdom’s general election next month.

“AI Steve,” represented by Sussex businessman Steve Endacott, will appear on the ballot alongside non-AI candidates running to represent constituents in the Brighton Pavilion area of Brighton and Hove, a city on England’s southern coast.

“AI Steve is the AI co-pilot,” Endacott said in an interview. “I’m the real politician going into Parliament, but I’m controlled by my co-pilot.”

Endacott is the chairman of Neural Voice, a company that creates personalized voice assistants for businesses in the form of an AI avatar. Neural Voice’s technology is behind AI Steve, one of the seven characters the company created to showcase its technology.

He said the idea is to use AI to create a politician who is always around to talk with constituents and who can take their views into consideration.

People can ask AI Steve questions or share their opinions on Endacott’s policies on its website, during which a large language model will give answers in voice and text based on a database of information about his party’s policies.

If he doesn’t have a policy for a particular issue raised, the AI will conduct some internet research before engaging the voter and pushing them to suggest a policy.

AI Steve, which is open to the public to try, told NBC News in response to a question about its stance on Brexit: “As a democracy, the UK voted to leave, and it’s my responsibility to implement and optimize this decision regardless of my personal views on the matter.”

“Do you have any thoughts on how Brexit should be managed in the future?” it added.

Endacott said he is also seeking thousands of whom he calls “validators,” or people he is targeting because he believes they represent the common man — in particular Brighton locals who have a long daily commute.

“We’re asking them once a week to score our policies from 1 to 10. And if a policy gets more than 50%, it gets passed. And that’s the official party policy,” he said, adding, “Every single policy, I will say that my decision is my voters’ decision. And I’m connected to my voters at any time on a weekly basis via electronic means.”

In 2022, Endacott unsuccessfully ran in a local election under the Conservative Party. He received less than 500 votes. This time, the unusual nature of his candidacy stirred some conversation on X over the weekend, when news of AI Steve’s launch leaked online and prompted around 1,000 calls to the AI proxy in one night.

Voters’ top issues so far, according to those calls, were (in order of importance): Concerns about the safety of Palestinians, trash bins, bicycle lanes, immigration and abortion. Endacott noted that having an AI representative enables him to respond, in a sense, to thousands of potential constituents a day.

“I don’t have to go knock on their door, get them out of bed when they don’t want to talk to me,” Endacott said. He said that was “the old form of politics,” whereas people can now choose to contact AI Steve on their own volition and at their convenience.

Endacott describes himself as a “centralist” who aligns most closely, but not quite, with the Green Party. His own party, Smarter U.K., was not registered in time for this year’s election.

He said he is not using the AI avatar to propel his own business interests, as he says he holds less than a 10% share in Neural River, the platform behind AI Steve. His primary motivation, he said, is to push the government to enact changes to cut carbon emissions — whether that means running for office or, “worst case,” becoming a political influencer.

If elected, AI Steve would be the first AI legislator to make it into public office — but he’s not the first to experiment with leveraging the emerging technology in elections. In Wyoming, a Cheyenne mayoral candidate reportedly says he would use an AI bot to make decisions for him. And two years ago, a political party in Denmark was founded on an AI-derived platform.

Though the concept of an AI politician may seem silly to some and disturbing to others, Endacott said he wants to make clear that his platform is “not a joke.” He rejects the premise that the AI is replacing a human politician — instead insisting that the aim is to bring “more humans” into politics.

“​​It’s not AI taking over the world. It’s AI being used as a technical way of connecting to our constituents and reinventing democracy by saying, ‘You don’t just vote for somebody every four years; you actually control the vote on an ongoing basis,’” he said. “Which is very, very radical in the U.K. Probably even more radical in America.”