A federal judge won’t throw out a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration over plans for a nearly $1.8 billion compensation fund for the president’s allies after officials refused to provide a sworn statement that the fund is actually dead.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema wanted officials to file a “short, written declaration under the penalty of perjury” that the government won’t take any action to “create or operate” what critics have called a slush fund for Trump’s allies.
Government attorneys refused, so the lawsuit is still alive, and the case could now go to trial, the judge said Thursday.
Despite telling members of Congress that the government is “not moving forward” with the fund, Blanche said he’s “not committing to put anything in writing” and refused to rescind a memo establishing the fund. Last week, the Justice Department called the judge’s request for a written statement “unnecessary” and said it amounted to judicial “overreach.”
An executive order by President Trump that seeks to enlist the U.S. Postal Service to limit voting by mail has hit a legal hurdle.
Lake Powell ‒ the massive Colorado River reservoir that produces power for millions of homes across the West ‒ is the emptiest it has ever been entering the hottest part of the summer. And the worst is still to come.
At least 188 people died and nearly 1,500 were injured June 24 after two devastating earthquakes hit a minute apart in northern Venezuela, the Caribbean nation with a long and deadly quake history.
Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister and aspirant for the top job in this year’s election, was upset. 
Senior Israeli security officials met on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, despite repeated previous failures to advance such plans, according to Haaretz.
