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Former Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Cincinnati on Thursday alongside Gov. Mike DeWine for a roundtable with members ofOhio's natural gas and oil industry.

While the topic will be domestic energy,Pence's visit comes amid a much bigger drama.

On the same day, the U.S. House Jan. 6 commission is expected to examine how former President Donald Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election.

Pence has not testified before the committee. But he's played a central role in the testimony about the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Pence's refusal to support Trump's plan to stay in power drew Trump's wrath, according to testimony from the Jan. 6 committee.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who serves as vice chair of the committee, said this past Thursday testimony will show Trump responded to the rioter's calls to "hang Mike Pence" by sayingthat maybe our supporters have the right idea" and that Mike Pence "deserves it.

More: Mike Pence says he could run for president in 2024 even if Trump also runs

The roundtable won't be open to the public. It will be hosted by the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program.

Pence will also be in town to raise money for Rep. Steve Chabot's reelection campaign at the home of Nancy and David Aichholz, according to an invitation sent out by the GOP.

Individual tickets cost $500 and a "VIP roundtable" with Pence costs $2,900.

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Mike Pence comes to Cincinnati as he becomes focus of Jan. 6 committee - The Cincinnati Enquirer

In the years since 2003, Iraqs political system came under several challenges, including a Sunni political boycott, the threat of Kurdish secessionism, and two sectarian wars. The post-Saddam state survived these existential threats, but it now faces new instability as leading Shia political figures fight for domination among themselves. Shia infighting has prevented the formation of a government following the October 2021 parliamentary election and risks triggering popular protests among the Iraqi public, which is already frustrated with poor services and corruption. In their dealings with Iraq, European policymakers should understand that, as sectarian political fighting has diminished, intra-sect battles have taken centre-stage.

In Octobers election, the Sadrist Movement, a populist Shia party, won 73 seats, the largest secured by any party. Iraq operates a system of proportional representation designed to reflect the ethno-sectarian make-up of the country. As a result, no one party has been able to secure a majority since 2005. The last eight months have seen the country stuck in political limbo.

While some in the West will be tempted to view these events as a struggle between pro-Western and pro-Iranian camps, the reality is that the competing parties overlap in their ideological leanings.

Since Iraqis went to the polls, the Sadrist Movements leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, has been seeking to assert his own dominance and relegate his long-standing Shia rival, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, to the political margins. He has attempted to translate his seat share into a bid to consolidate the Shia share of power, allying himself with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Sunni Siyada (Sovereignty) Alliance. Sadr has rejected the traditional consensus model that incorporates all political parties, and instead wants to force other Shia parties into opposition. But this tripartite coalition lacks the two-thirds majority required to elect the president of the republic, who then designates the prime minister.

Having failed to form a majority government, Sadr has tried to persuade some of the Shia groups to join his coalition but to no avail. They are adamant on joining forces as one Shia bloc to prevent any single Shia party monopolising the political scene. Just as in the past when smaller parties worked with Sadr against Maliki to prevent the latter from forming a government alone, so today some of these same groups have switched sides to balance against Sadr.

In a bid to break the impasse Sadr has now directed his parliamentarians to resign. This move allows him to deflect blame for the delay in government formation. It also allows him to express his frustration with all political parties, including his allies, who he does not believe are committed enough to a majority government. However, because parliament is in recess, the new MPs have not been sworn in. As a result, Sadr is positioned to benefit from this move, as it forces his rivals to present more concessions such as offering lucrative ministries and his choice of prime minister to keep him in the system. Outside it, he poses a threat to the state, whether through delegitimisation of the political system, the mobilisation of protests, or the spectre of violence.

By having his MPs resign during the parliamentary recess, Sadr is also protecting himself from any backlash from summer protests, as his move attempts to demonstrate his own dissatisfaction with the political elite. In fact, he is in a position to co-opt potential protests and use them as a tool to pressure his political rivals. Even before the October poll, Sadr threatened not to support any government formed without him. Having invested in, and benefited from, the political system for years, Sadr will only leave it if he has concluded that the best route to political dominance is through mass mobilisation.

This is a battle for Shia dominance. While some in the West will be tempted to view these events as a struggle between pro-Western and pro-Iranian camps, the reality is that the competing parties overlap in their ideological leanings. Both Sadr and Maliki have longstanding albeit at times prickly relations with Tehran. For this reason, other Shia political figures (such as former prime minister Haider al-Abadi and Ammar al-Hakim), who are considered more Western-leaning, are opposing Sadr and siding with other Shia groups. These include groups such as the Fatah Alliance, which have more antagonistic views towards the West. Shia parties are invested in preserving the political equilibrium in order to maintain their share of the political spoils.

In fleeting moments of stability, Shia parties have challenged one another for power. After the 2008 civil war, Maliki attempted to establish himself as the dominant Shia leader and launched the Charge of the Knights military campaign, taking on Sadrs Mahdi Army. But in times of Shia internal conflict, the clerical establishment in Najaf normally intervenes to prevent instability in Iraq generally and among the Shia in particular. And, even though its ability to impose discipline on paramilitary groups in Iraq has weakened since the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Irans role as a potential mediator between Shia political parties should not be underestimated.

This political uncertainty is hindering urgently needed governance reforms. In the past, supporters and allies of Shia leaders excused the neglect these leaders had shown to their communities because of the more pressing concerns of fighting terrorism and pushing back against secessionist Kurdish lobbying. Today, such threats are less immediate, and the Iraqi population is more focused on improvements in governance and services. This pressure has manifested itself through mass protests, which reached their zenith in the October protest movement in 2019, with hundreds of people killed in associated violence. Those protests effectively caused the collapse of the previous government and led to the most recent election. The wider Shia public could again turn to popular protest in response to the political impasse.

In examining the political situation in Iraq, European policymakers need to grasp that an important shift has occurred. Although the Iraqi political system no longer faces existential crises, the political infighting among the Shia risks creating a new form of crisis. In this struggle, Sadr may be considering moving the fight from parliament to the street.

High summer temperatures tend to expose the states inability to provide basic services, as rising demand for water and electricity goes unmet and creates cause for protest. In this environment of simmering public dissatisfaction, Shia political parties need to quickly recalibrate their role towards their Shia voter base and Iraqis as a whole. Iraqs political system may have withstood numerous challenges to it since 2003, but current public dissatisfaction, if manifested through revolution-orientated (rather than reformist) protest, could create a new existential crisis.

The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.

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From parliament to street: Iraqs emerging politics of domination - European Council on Foreign Relations

Russia should warn the UK: Iraq to Libya but no nation trained to kill their soldiers

Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

In the United Kingdom, austerity became a buzzword for the ruling Conservative Party. Now, the convulsions of the coronavirus and economic sanctions on the Russian Federation are leading to poorer members of society needing food banks. Also, others are making dramatic cutbacks concerning recent energy and food hikes. However, despite this and countless recent scandals that blight the leader of the United Kingdom and others within his party endless money is found to support the armed forces of Ukraine.

At no point did the Russian Federation seek to train the armed forces of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya to kill British soldiers. On the contrary, the IRA terrorist group obtained funding via NORAID in America during a period when many people were killed in Northern Ireland (and sometimes on the mainland).

The President Barack Obama doctrine in Syria was to bleed the armed forces of Syria and various terrorist groups to a standstill once ISIS (Islamic State IS) entered the fray. This concerns the armed forces of Syria and various Sunni Islamist terrorist groups supported by Gulf powers and NATO Turkey. However, with the support of the Russian Federation and Iran, the government of Syria managed to survive despite NATO Turkey and its continuing intrigue in Northern Syria (and Islamist terrorist groups in a limited area of the country).

However and of major importance the nations of America, Iran, the Russian Federation, and several European NATO powers implemented a policy to avoid clashes with each other. Also, to avoid air force mistakes or other types of military operations that might overlap concerning Iraq and Syria. Therefore, no nation openly trained the armed forces of others to attack another major nation involved in the ensuing chaos of Iraq and Syria.

Yet, the crisis concerning Ukraine and the Russian Federation sending in military forces to protect Russians and non-ethnic Russian speakers in the Donbas (Donbass) region and adjacent areas is out of control. This concerns European Union nations, NATO, and G7 countries that have put tough economic sanctions on the Russian Federation along with sending tens of billions of military hardware to the armed forces of Ukraine.

It is abundantly obvious that covert training of the armed forces of Ukraine is happening related to NATO powers. However, now Prime Minister Boris Johnson is openly gloating about training the armed forces of Ukraine to kill Russian Federation soldiers and Russian and non-ethnic Russian speakers who are bombarded by Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region. Therefore, the Russian Federation should warn the United Kingdom that they are crossing a line: if not, this line will be expanded by the United Kingdom and other NATO powers.

The Guardian reports, Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will oversee a new three-week training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, as he visited Kyiv for the third time this year for talks with the Ukrainian president,Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Johnson said, As Ukrainian soldiers fire UK missiles in defence of your nations sovereignty, they do so also in defence of the very freedoms we take for granted. That is why I have offered President Zelenskiy a major new military training programme that could change the equation of this war harnessing that most powerful of forces, the Ukrainian determination to win.

The working class got the vote earlier in the United Kingdom because of the convulsions of World War One. Then the armed forces of this nation protected its Empire that benefited the ruling elites. After the collapse of the Empire, the United Kingdom supported the genocide of Biafra concerning the support of the armed forces of Nigeria to the brutal deeds done in Indonesia along with America (two million killed related to the butchering of communists, East Timor, and the ongoing crisis in West Papua).

The nations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen (UK military arms and training of the Saudi-led alliance that bombs Yemen) are failed states. America and the United Kingdom have killed untold numbers in these nations and deaths continue long after both nations leave. Indeed, after the Libya debacle: the entire Sahel is now awash with terrorism and millions of displaced people have little hope for the future.

The sovereignty of the nations above became violated by America and the United Kingdom (and other allies). However, no war crimes, no democracy to speak of that is functioning, and no modernity. Instead, broken nations that are now failed states, minorities barely surviving (Yazidis in Iraq to Christians of Syria), women facing greater hardship, and other horrendous convulsions.

It is time for the Russian Federation to draw red lines and for nations to seek an ending to the conflict. Since 2014, the European Union, G7 nations, and NATO countries didnt concern themselves with Ukrainian forces bombing the Donbas region. Therefore, a deal needs to be done that recognizes the annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk and other adjacent regions that support the re-alignment with the Russian Federation (the Soviet Union and the Communist Party altered the borders of Ukraine to the detriment of Russians and non-ethnic pro-Russian Federation groups).

At the same time, Ukraine should be outside the NATO bloc and the Russian Federation and Ukraine should sign an agreement that neither side will seek land changes agreed to or attack the other side. In other words, turn the crisis into a frozen conflict and then for both nations to develop economic and political dealings along with other nations.

The United Kingdom needs to pull back from its open hostility by stealth. Hence, nations should focus on the Iraq and Syria model where no nation sought open confrontation and no nation trained other armed forces to attack rival nations. Therefore, the Russian Federation should warn the United Kingdom to desist immediately.

It is hoped that wise heads will emerge because the armed forces of Ukraine are dying in increasing numbers NATO military hardware means the Donbas region is being bombed more extensively again and the international economy is fraying concerning energy, foodstuffs, and so on.

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Russia should warn the UK: Iraq to Libya but no nation trained to kill their soldiers - Modern Tokyo Times

Droughts can be a normal part of the climate. But as temperatures rise in the wake of global heating, these dry spells are becoming more severe and longer in many regions. The trend can disrupt entire food systems, pushing millions into starvation and dehydration.

In an unusual twist, our current high-emitting lifestyle has also helped reveal how we used to live before the climate crisis became quite so urgent. Thats because droughts have uncovered remnants of past communities, some of them thousands of years old.

Little is known about the Mittani Empire

A 2018 drought in the Kurdish region of Iraq provided a rare glimpse into a little known society: The Mittani Empire.

German and Kurdish archeologists discovered a3,400-year-old palace from the Bronze Age on the shore of the Tigris river after water levels in the Mosul Dam reservoir went down enough to reveal the ruins. The ancient palace belonged to a kingdom that once dominated large parts of northern Mesopotamia and Syria.

"The Mittani Empire is one of the least researched empires of the Ancient Near East," archaeologist Ivana Puljiz of Germany's University of Tbingen said at the time. "Even the capital of the Mittani Empire has not been identified beyond doubt."

The team partially found preserved wall paintings and 10 cuneiform clay tablets in the rooms it excavated. By studying the tablets, archaeologists hope to learn more about the empire.

Aceredo was flooded to make way for a reservoir in the 1990s

More recently, a Spanish village that was flooded to create a reservoir reemerged when a drought hit this February. Visitors flocked to Aceredo on the Spanish-Portuguese border to see the eerie ruins and 1992 mementos beer bottles and rusty cars included.

Maria del Carmen Yanez, mayor of the larger Lobios council that Aceredo belongs to, told Reuters it had rained very little in recent months. But she also blamed the situation on the Portuguese power utility EDP and its "quite aggressive exploitation" of the reservoir where the company runs a hydropower plant.

EDP acknowledged that reservoir levels were low because of the drought, but told Reuters it ran its water resources efficiently" and above the minimum requirements.

California's drought crisis has exposed previously submerged relics from the gold rush era

In the mid-1800s, a gold rush in California attracted hundreds of thousands of miners trying their luck. Last year, it was tourists traveling to this area after a drought significantly emptied the lake in which gold rush towns were submerged in astark reminder of the US state's ongoing water crisis.

"With historically low water levels that have been worsened by the impacts of climate change, artefacts and ruins once belonging to past communities and cultures of the area are now appearing along the lakebed,"a Facebook post by the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area read.

Visitors could look at the ruins of places like Mormon Island, which attracted thousands of Mormon fortune seekers in its heyday. The town had several shops, four hotels and an express office before it burned down in 1856. Tourists risk a fine if they tamper with the remains at the site.

The region is known as Edersee's Atlantis because the ruins are usually submerged in water

The Edersee in the western German state of Hesse is the second largest reservoir in the country. But as extreme heat and low rainfall haveintensified droughts across Germany, when the Edersee's water levels drop, they revealwhat is known as the regionsAtlantis. Here lie ruins, including those ofa bridge, three villages and gravestones of onetimelocals. The area was originally flooded to make way for the reservoir.

The project was built more than 100 years ago to provide water for the Weser River and Mittelland Canal, ensuring ships could travel on them during driersummer months. German Emperor Wilhelm II even paid a personal visit to the construction site in 1911.

Now, the sunken villages have turned into a tourist attraction when Edersee's levels drop low enough during hot periods.

This bridge is only visible when water levels drop

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

Read more:
Severe droughts reveal sunken relics of the past - DW (English)

Two white men in Florida, in the same town where Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, have been arrested on felony charges.

The pair were apprehended after they harassed and racially profiled a 16-year-old teenage Black boy and also threw a rock through his car window, according to Heavy.

The two white men, Donald Eugene Corsi and Howard Oral Hughes reside in Sanford, Florida, which is the same city where 17-year-old Martin was assaulted before being shot and killed by Zimmerman in 2012.

The victim posted a video of the incident on his Instagram account which shows the two white men verbally assaulting him as a white woman, who was also filming, yells out, Get out of this neighborhood. You dont belong here.

I was racially profiled while driving through my friends neighborhood. They didnt like the way I was driving, so they felt the need to hit my car with a cone, and throw a rock through my window. All I wanted to do wasde-escalate until police came, because I wasnt about to get charges pressed on me for no reason .

The victims father said that the police were called to the scene but did not immediately arrest the two white men. Seminole County court records show that Corsi, 52, and Hughes, 61 were later taken into custody.

Corsi was charged with weapon offenses saying that he sent a missile into a vehicle, which is a second-degree felony. They both were charged with criminal mischief, being accused of causing more than $1,000 in damages to property, which amounts to a third-degree felony. Hughes was also charged with first-degree misdemeanor battery (touch or strike). The two men were released from the Seminole County jail after posting bond.

Hughes was released after posting $2,500 bail, while Corsi was released after he posted a $17,000 bond. The scheduled court date for the pair is on Aug. 16 for their arraignments.

Corsi could face up to 15 years in prison if he is found guilty of the second-degree felony weapons offense as well as a fine and probation.

On the third-degree felony charge, Hughes and Corsi are looking at up to five years in Florida state prison plus fines and probation. Hughes was also charged with a misdemeanor that carries a potential sentence of up to one year in jail.

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Two White Men Arrested For Threatening Black Teen, Throwing a Rock In His Car In Same Town Trayvon Martin Was - Black Enterprise