Two days after catastrophic flash floods raged through central Texas, at least 78 people have been confirmed dead. President Donald Trump said he’ll visit the area on Friday.
|
|
|
| “The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it.” |
— Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations" |
| |
|
-
Two days after catastrophic flash floods raged through central Texas, at least 78 people, including 28 children, have been confirmed dead, more than 40 remain missing. President Donald Trump has signed an emergency declaration and said he’ll visit the area on Friday.
-
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent became the first Trump administration official to respond to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he intends to form a new political party to challenge both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
-
After years of steady growth, government regulations and the high cost of compliance have made it difficult for organic farmers to remain profitable.
-
As U.S.-China tensions escalate over tech and national security, a new wave of corruption scandals is shaking the Chinese Communist Party’s big data sector, one of the regime’s most strategically important industries.
-
🍵 Health: Ten research-backed, natural ways to counter depression.
|
☀️ Good morning! It’s Monday. Thank you for reading the Morning Brief, an exclusive newsletter for Epoch Times subscribers. 👋 New to Morning Brief? Subscribe. 🎧 Prefer to listen? Get the podcast. |
|
|
| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
|
|
Search and recovery workers dig through debris looking for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, on July 6, 2025. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images) |
Two days after catastrophic flash floods raged through central Texas, at least 78 people, including 28 children, have been confirmed dead, more than 40 remain missing, and rescuers continue to search through a devastating landscape of overturned cars and mud-filled debris for potential survivors.
President Donald Trump on Sunday signed a major disaster declaration for the Texas county hardest hit by the floods. The president said he intends to visit the area on Friday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday warned of another round of intense rain that is expected to descend upon the Lone Star State and lead to potential flash flooding. Ten girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County, remain missing.
Abbott said in a news conference in Austin, Texas, on July 6 that 41 people are unaccounted for across the state, in all the areas affected by flooding. He asked anybody who may suspect a person they know to be missing in Kerr County to reach out to local officials with that person’s identification and other concrete information.
More U.S. News: |
-
Tropical Storm Chantal made landfall in South Carolina early Sunday morning, bringing with it heavy rains as it moved inland across northeastern South Carolina and into Eastern North Carolina.
-
Here’s how instructors train pilots to get out of risky situations.
- A record number of Americans hold side hustles, surveys show.
|
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent became the first Trump administration official to respond to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he intends to form a new political party to challenge both Democrats and Republicans.
Over the weekend, Musk wrote on his social media platform X that he will launch the “America Party.” Bessent was asked about Musk’s move during an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. In his response, he suggested that the White House is ambivalent of Musk’s move.
“The principles of DOGE were very popular. I think, if you look at the polling, Elon was not,” Bessent said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency.
“I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone. So, I imagine those boards of directors did not like his announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities.”
While Musk had donated and raised millions of dollars for President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and later joined the administration to run DOGE for a 130-day period that ended in May, he and the president have had a falling out over the One Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law last week by Trump. Prior to leaving the administration, Musk served as the frontman for DOGE, which was established by Trump to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. Musk has said that he believes the bill would lead to a heightened national debt. (More) More Politics: |
-
A newly released CIA memo reveals that George Joannides, an undercover officer specializing in psychological warfare, used the alias “Howard Gebler” while managing an exile group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The group also interacted with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963—contradicting decades of CIA denials about Joannides’s role in events leading up to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
|
As U.S.-China tensions escalate over tech and national security, a new wave of corruption scandals is shaking the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) big data sector, one of the regime’s most strategically important industries.
Chinese state media reported on July 2 that Yu Shiyang, head of the Big Data Development Department at China’s State Information Center, is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law,” a phrase widely understood in China to mean political misconduct or corruption. In most cases, such investigations do not result in open trials. Instead, officials are often detained in secret, disappear from public view, and are quietly removed from their posts.
Yu is the latest in a growing list of high-level officials in China’s data and tech sector to fall from grace. Yu, who once held a visiting scholar position at MIT, was considered a rising star in China’s digital governance sector, an unusual profile for a CCP official due to his international experience. He also served as executive deputy director of the Internet and Big Data Center under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing’s top economic planning agency.
The announcement was jointly issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CCP’s top anti-corruption body, and its counterpart in Hebei Province, underscoring the political weight behind the case.
The investigation into Yu is part of a broader pattern that has plagued China’s big data sector, particularly in Guizhou Province, which the CCP has touted as a national data hub since 2016. Once hailed as China’s first national-level big data experimental zone, Guizhou signed a landmark deal in 2018 allowing a local government-backed company, Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, to partner with Apple in operating iCloud services within mainland China. (More)
Elephants return to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage after taking their daily bath in a river in Pinnawala, Sri Lanka, on July 6, 2025. (Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images) |
📸 Day in Photos: Catastrophic Flooding in Texas, Wildfire in France, and Elephant Orphanage (Look) 🎤 Facts Matter: Trump to Reform Census to Avoid Counting Noncitizens (Watch) ✍️ Opinion: |
-
The Sunday School Mass Shooting That Didn’t Happen in Michigan—by Jonathan Miltimore (Read)
- Are We Training Kids to Beat AI—Or Training AI to Beat Kids?—by Kay Rubacek (Read)
- Fracking Is America’s (Not So) Secret Weapon—by Jim Welty, Rob Brundrett, and Charlie Burd (Read)
|
🎵 Music: Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 (Listen) 📫 Forward this email to a friend and tell them to subscribe. (Here)
☕ Love coffee, mugs, stickers, and clothes? Check out our shop.
💬 Feedback? Reply to this email or write to ivanmb@epochtimes.nyc |
Protecting your skin and knowing the warning signs may help reduce your risk of skin cancer. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) |
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States, and its incidence has been increasing. It includes basal cell carcinoma (BCC)—the most common and generally less dangerous type, which often is not reported to cancer registries—and also the deadly type called melanoma.
Most skin cancers are nonmelanoma. Melanoma, though it accounts for about 1 percent of skin cancers, is the fifth most common cancer overall in the United States. While skin cancer often shows no symptoms in its early stages, a key warning sign for any type is a new or changing skin spot that persists for two weeks or longer. There are three main types of skin cancer, each with distinct characteristics and warning signs.
Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) is the most common form, accounting for approximately 80 percent of all skin cancer cases in the United States. BCC originates in the basal cells—located in the lower part of the epidermis—that continuously divide to replace aging squamous cells on the skin’s surface.
Where it appears: BCCs most often develop on sun-exposed areas such as the face, ears, scalp, neck, shoulders, and arms, but they can also appear on the chest, back, abdomen, and legs.
Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common type of skin cancer, with more than 1 million cases diagnosed annually in the United States. SCC originates in the squamous cells, which are flat cells located in the outermost layer of the epidermis that are regularly shed and replaced.
Where it appears: SCCs most commonly develop on areas that receive frequent sun exposure—such as the face, ears, neck, arms, chest, and back. They can also develop within scars, skin sores, or injured skin, often with surrounding skin showing signs of sun damage. (More)
|
|
|
|
Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day. |
—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li. |
|
|
Copyright © 2025 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is: The Epoch Times. 229 W. 28 St. Fl. 7 New York, NY 10001 | Contact Us
Our Morning Brief newsletter is one of the best ways to receive the most up-to-date information. Manage your email preferences here or unsubscribe from Morning Brief here.
|
|
|
|
