Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool. One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/politics/three-people-charged-damaging-reflecting-pool
An Italian fishing village on Lake Como has introduced a fine for anyone found wandering its streets bare-chested or in swimwear. Anyone flouting the village’s new dress code will now face a penalty of up to 200 euros ($228) under the latest measure aimed at limiting the impact of mass tourism in Italy. Visitors to Varenna, which hugs the eastern bank of the scenic lake in northern Italy, have been warned that the only places where they are allowed to be in swimwear or go bare-chested are the village’s beaches, piers and boat docks.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/travel/italian-village-fine-bare-chests-swimwear-scli-intl
Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant, told members of Congress last month that she never met any of the girls and young women who provided massages to Epstein and that she didn’t know anything about their backgrounds – including how old they were. Some Epstein survivors say that Groff was not telling the truth. In interviews with CNN, multiple Epstein victims, including four women who spoke on record and two who shared their accounts anonymously, took issue with various aspects of Groff’s recent testimony to lawmakers. They described meeting Groff in person, discussing with Groff how old they were and being directly paid by Epstein’s assistant of 18 years — all contrary to what Groff told lawmakers.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/lesley-groff-jeffrey-epstein-survivors
A political gamble looks like it has spectacularly backfired. When British right-wing populist leader Nigel Farage announced he was resigning as a lawmaker and triggering a special election in the face of a swirl of allegations over personal financing, he sought the high ground, declaring that the “judges of my actions” should be his constituents. Instead, rival parties dismissed his actions as a stunt and said they would sit out the election, leaving his principal opponent as a garbage-can wearing comedian whose policies include forcing rule-breaking cyclists to ride unicycles.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/09/uk/nigel-farage-special-election-bin-face-intl