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Biden's Supreme Court reforms, a protest in Israel, and a disputed Venezuelan election

 
Today's Judicial story

Biden proposes term limits for Supreme Court

What happened
President Joe Biden on Monday unveiled a set of legislative reforms designed to "restore the public's faith in our judicial system" through term limits, an enforceable code of ethics for U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and rollbacks of the expansive presidential immunity granted to Donald Trump last month. 

Who said what
"What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public's confidence in the court's decisions," Biden said in an essay for The Washington Post. In addition to supporting 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices and a binding code of ethics, Biden raised the ratification of a new "No One Is Above the Law" constitutional amendment to "make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office."

Biden's proposals are part of a Democratic effort to "delegitimize the Supreme Court" and are "dead on arrival" in Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said. The reforms are an "election-year message designed to excite the Democrats' progressive base" during a time of "deep unpopularity for the high court," CNN said.

What next?
Even if Democrats retake the House next year, they're "unlikely to have the 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster" of any laws reflecting Biden's proposals, Politico said. A constitutional amendment would be "even more difficult, needing two-thirds support from both chambers of Congress or from a convention called by two-thirds of the states, as well as the approval of three-fourths of state legislatures."

 
 
Today's middle east story

Right-wing mob breaches Israeli military base

What happened
Dozens of far-right protesters, flanked by conservative members of the Israeli Knesset, breached the perimeter of Israel's Sde Teiman detention center on Monday. Military police worked to detain army reservists over allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinian prisoners kept on the base. 

Who said what
Monday's riot at a base that has "become a symbol of the war" between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza was "disastrous," The Jerusalem Post said. Some reservists serving at the base attempted to disrupt the raid on their comrades in a "rare instance of Israeli soldiers confronting their own," The New York Times said. Israel faces an "existential threat if these people do not get out of the government and of our lives," opposition leader Yair Lapid said on X, citing the "dangerous criminality" of the right-wing lawmakers who participated in the riot, reported CNN. 

What next?
At least nine reservists were detained by military police on Monday. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel's High Court that Sde Teiman would only be used for short-term detentions. 

 
 
Today's south america Story

Venezuelans protest against election result

What happened
Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Venezuela yesterday after Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in an election that opposition figures say was marred by fraud.

Who said what
"It's going to fall. It's going to fall. This government is going to fall!" some of the protesters shouted.

"Public anger swelled," Al Jazeera said, after the National Electoral Council formally confirmed that President Maduro had been re-elected without releasing any tallies from the 30,000 polling stations across Venezuela.

What next?
The United States and many Latin American countries said Maduro cannot claim victory without the full release of vote counts.

Regional leftist leaders including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro "did not congratulate Mr. Maduro and instead called for the tallies to be released," said The New York Times.

As demonstrations continued Maduro claimed, without providing evidence, that an "attempt is being made to impose a coup d'etat in Venezuela." Opposition leaders dismissed the claim and called for more peaceful protests.

 
 

It's not all bad

Hundreds of German women who fought back against the Nazi regime are being honored in a new exhibition at the German Resistance Memorial in Berlin. Historically, attention has focused on male resisters, and this new display acknowledges the "courage and achievements" of the women who worked alongside them. Gerda Boenke is one of the women in the spotlight. A member of a banned communist group, she was executed after being reported for wishing Hitler had died in a 1944 assassination attempt.

 
 
Under the radar

Inconvenience store: Shops are locking up more inventory

Pop into a drugstore to grab some razors or a new mascara, and you are likely to find those items trapped behind security glass. There you stand, pressing the call-for-help button and waiting for a cashier to unlock the case. But some research suggests the shoplifting problem these lockups combat is overblown. 

The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research organization, tracked shoplifting trends in 24 cities from 2019 to the middle of 2023 and found that rates decreased in more than two-thirds of the cities over that time, said the Los Angeles Times. However, in 2022, "nearly 70% of retailers reported a rise in organized retail crime," which contributed to "theft and losses of as much as $69 billion a year," said Forbes, citing statistics from the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the Buy Safe America Coalition. 

Why is there a discrepancy between the two reports? Retail theft is notoriously difficult to track. "The true severity and scope of the problem" remains a mystery, said the Times. 

New products are being born of the apparent need to stop the rise in theft. Security solutions company InVue has seen sales for its smart locks surge 86% year-to-date. Another tool, Freedom Case, allows customers to unlock products using their cellphones or a store loyalty card, which is reportedly being tested by 26 retailers already, said Joe Budano, the CEO of developer Indyme, to CNN.

 
 
On this day

July 30, 1419

An angry mob stormed Prague New Town Hall and threw councilors from the building's windows. The violent event marked the start of the Hussite wars, which raged for 15 years. A further defenestration at the Royal Palace in 1618 sparked the 30 Years War. Visitors to the city's castle can see the window from which the Catholic officials were flung by Protestant Bohemians.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

Big Tech has been "suppressing coverage of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump," claims the New York Post. The newspaper says there have been "false labels, confused artificial intelligence and strange search results" over the shooting. Meta confirmed that its AI tool had been giving "incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date information." The New York Times focuses on how the gunman who attacked the former president "kept one step ahead of the secret service", while The Wall Street Journal says the forthcoming White House election has triggered a "battle of the sexes". "The forces of American culture" are "pushing men and women under age 30 into opposing camps."

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

'Horizontal gymnastics'

As part of efforts to make the Paris Olympics more eco-friendly, competing athletes are sleeping on beds made from cardboard. Some believe organizers also chose these beds because the design is "anti-sex," but the inventor "insisted they can accommodate the horizontal gymnastics of three people or even four," said The Times. British diver Tom Daley posted a video on Instagram showing him jumping on a bed, saying, "As you can see, they are pretty sturdy."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harold Maass, Summer Meza, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Adrienne Wyper, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images; Oren Ziv / AFP via Getty Images; Pedro Rances Mattey / Anadolu via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images