Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump committed to their first debate on Thursday, setting up for a primetime showdown on ABC News on Sept. 10. Trump suggested two more debates, one on Fox on Sept. 4 and one on NBC on Sept. 25. Harris has yet to announce whether she’ll take him up on the offer.

The confirmation of the first debate took place as Harris gained momentum in the race and edged Trump in polling some battleground states. The second “first” debate in September will take place after Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, accept their formal nominations at the DNC convention which starts in Chicago on Aug. 19. 

Trump’s debate against President Joe Biden in late June became an inflection point for the election. The establishment media and a vocal minority within the Democratic Party used Biden’s performance at the debate as rationale for a sustained campaign which led to Biden dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. (Full Story ›)

A judge has approved a $12.7 billion settlement between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and FTX, the defunct crypto exchange founded by convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

The settlement requires FTX to pay $8.7 billion in restitution and $4 billion in disgorgement, which will be used to compensate victims of what the commission described as a “massive fraudulent scheme” orchestrated by Bankman-Fried, his now-bankrupt FTX group of companies, and a group of FTX insiders.

John Ray, who was appointed CEO of FTX to manage the recovery of assets from the failed company, signed the consent order. Ray stated in a filing with a bankruptcy court six days after his appointment that in more than 40 years of dealing with insolvencies, he had never encountered such a “complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information” as had taken place at FTX. (Full Story ›)

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is intensifying its transnational repression campaign against Falun Gong, especially in the United States, according to three whistleblowers with access to the regime’s internal information.

Beijing’s new strategy involves manipulating social media influencers and Western media to propagate misinformation and false allegations, with a goal to sow public discord and to trigger a U.S. law enforcement response against practitioners of the spiritual discipline, who have been brutally persecuted by the CCP for decades.

While Chinese dissidents in the United States have long been targeted by the CCP, the newest campaign appears to be unprecedented in its scale and sophistication, even “trending into unchartered territory,” according to a Aug. 7 report by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a nonprofit documenting the CCP’s persecution. (Full Story ›)