Lettuce Supplier Linked To Cyclosporiasis Outbreak: ReportFederal investigators said they believe a popular lettuce supplier is possibly linked to a cyclosporiasis outbreak that has sickened thousands in the U.S., sources told The Washington Post. Taylor Farms, a California-based fresh produce distributor, is believed to have supplied the shredded lettuce sold by Taco Bell that has been linked to the outbreak, the Post reported, citing two anonymous sources. “The signal we have gotten is that there is a very high percentage of people who got sick at Taco Bell, and when investigators asked what their menu items were in common, lettuce came up frequently,” one of sources told the Post. Read more:Latest Live UpdatesGhost Gun Company Ordered To Pay $104 Million In Historic VerdictA ghost gun company has been ordered to pay more than $100 million in the death of a Kentucky teenager who had purchased the company’s pistol-building kit online.The verdict — believed to be the largest ever against a gun dealer — was awarded by a jury Wednesday following a trial focused on whether the vendor, Husky Armory LLC, skirted federal regulations barring the sale of the gun-assembly kits to those under 21.Read more from The Associated Press:Democratic Association Of Secretaries Of State Can’t Even With TrumpAfter listening to President Donald Trump’s claims of election meddling and a deep state conspiracy on Thursday night, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State issued a succinct response. (h/t Grace Panetta/The 19th)Trump Recycles, Distorts Old Intelligence Reports To Attack U.S. Elections AnewPresident Donald Trump, who lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him on a nearly daily basis, in a much-hyped White House speech Thursday claimed that U.S. elections are vulnerable to hacking and worse than those in third-world countries as he renewed assertions that a “deep state” withheld information from him.“Members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, many cases, in our intelligence agency, worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people like nobody thought was possible,” Trump said during 25 minutes of disjointed, often difficult-to-follow remarks from the East Room.Read more:Trump Is Still Not Over LA Mayor Election, Brings It Up In Primetime SpeechPresident Donald Trump spent part of his primetime speech Thursday to bring up the recent Los Angeles mayoral election, repeating his party’s baseless lies about voter fraud. “It took a month to count the votes, I wonder what they were doing,” he said. “This is worse than any third-world country, there’s no third-world country that has elections like we do.” Trump has expressed frustration over Republican Spencer Pratt’s loss in the race and has previously claimed the election was stolen. He also claimed the election was an example of why the U.S. should require voters to show ID and proof of citizenship and eliminate mail-in ballots except in certain situations – all of which are features of the SAVE America Act, a bill the president has been pressuring Senate Republicans to pass. Trump: Networks That Didn't Air Primetime Speech Live Should Have Licenses RevokedPresident Donald Trump called out ABC and NBC for not airing his primetime speech live, arguing their licenses should be revoked.The threat was reminiscent of one that FCC chair Brendan Carr has issued several times during Trump’s second term, most notably toward ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel after comments he made about the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.During his speech Thursday, Trump accused the networks of being “part of a plot” with others in the media and claimed they “knew what [the speech] was about” but didn’t air it live “because of the fact that they don’t like the topic.”Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt merely teased that the speech would cover election interference and other topics, and encouraged people to tune in to find out what the president would discuss.The move to not air a president’s primetime address was not unprecedented. In 2022, networks chose not to air an address by then-President Joe Biden, arguing it was too “political,” according to The Washington Post. Trump Declassifies Docs He Claims Prove Fraud, Foreign Meddling In 2020 ElectionIn his primetime speech on Thursday, President Donald Trump announced he was declassifying intelligence documents that he claimed showed vulnerabilities in the U.S. election systems and proved foreign meddling in the 2020 election. “This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes (us to), like levels never thought possible, the hacking, exploitation and foreign interference,” he said. “This vital information for many years has been covered up and hidden from you.” Trump encouraged Americans to visit the White House website, where he said the declassified documents would be released, starting on Thursday.The administration claims the documents show evidence of foreign meddling in the 2020 election, including a plot by the Maduro administration in Venezuela to electronically manipulate election results and China’s procurement of 220 million U.S. voter files. “Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in elections, but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly,” Trump said. More Maine Senate Candidates Share Their Top Priorities, If ElectedThe second batch of Maine Senate candidates in the Thursday debate laid out what they’d hope to first accomplish if elected as part of a new Democratic majority. “We need to stop this brutality that ICE is imposing on communities across this country,” Dan Kleban, co-founder of the Maine Beer Co., said. He also said he’d “fight for Mainers,” “stand up” to President Donald Trump and work to end the Iran war.Transgender activist Ashley Webb said healthcare reform would be her priority.“I think another thing that should be taken care of is the tariffs. That’s what jacked the price on a lot of the products in the stores,” Webb said.She added that the U.S.-Israel war on Iran needed to be stopped.“Why are we paying for this never-ending war? Every one of those bombs they drop on them, that’s more of our tax dollars going away. And then the question is, where did they get the money to fund this? They’re not able to fund healthcare, but they’re able to fund this war,” Webb said.Former Maryland environmental official David Costello said he’d focus on raising wages and increasing Social Security benefits.“I support Medicare for all,” Costello said. “I support universal childcare, which would help families with children. I’d support putting a lot more money into a number of federal programs that would expand housing assistance, first-time homebuyers, renters, those kinds of things.”Former state legislator Elizabeth Dickerson said she’d help end the Iran war.“Day one, we’re going to end the Iran war, and then we’re going to take a look at healthcare,” she said. “I don’t actually have health insurance right now because I can’t afford it, and many people are in my position.”Maine Senate Candidates Call For ICE To Be AbolishedDuring Thursday’s debate, moderator Rob Caldwell asked the Maine Senate candidates how they would reform ICE, on the heels of the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero on July 13 in Biddeford. “We need a new law enforcement agency that has the trust of the people,” former Capitol Hill staffer Jordan Wood said. He insisted that as a senator, he wouldn’t approve a budget unless ICE reform was implemented, requiring agents to wear body cameras and not to wear masks.“There has to be real accountability and prosecution of those that break the law,” Wood added.Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows also condemned the shooting, but did not offer a clear plan for reform.“We know the facts,” Bellows said. “He was a good guy. All of his neighbors said so. He was legally here, and you know what? Doesn’t matter. Nobody deserves to get shot in the streets when their 3-year-old daughter is still in her pajamas, and there are other kids and other families nearby just getting ready to work, getting ready to go about their day.”“I remember when there was no ICE,” she added. “I remember a day when the thugs weren’t in the government, and they didn’t have arms.”Former Maine state Sen. Troy Jackson also doubled down on abolishing ICE, which he said was not actually law enforcement, but rather a “rogue agency that goes around doing things that they’re being told to [do] on high.”“We do not need that type of law enforcement,” Jackson said. “They need to be dismantled because they give us nothing in this country but heartache and racism.”Former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah said the killing made him “beyond furious,” especially as someone whose parents were immigrants.“I don’t think this agency can be reformed. The rot has gone to the core, and that’s why we must abolish it. Is that going to take some time? Perhaps,” he said. Since ICE won’t be abolished soon, Shah argued that, in the interim, ICE agents must be banned from wearing masks, required to wear body cameras that are turned on and have their immunity lifted.Severe Texas Flooding Leaves 2 Dead Nearly A Year After Deadly Flood In Hill CountryTwo people have been killed in Texas after severe flooding forced hundreds to evacuate, just a little over a year after devastating flooding killed at least 136 people in the same region, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said.Uvalde County in southwest Texas, about 85 miles west of San Antonio, saw three days of heavy rain leading to widespread flash flooding across the region.More than 2,350 state emergency responders and 1,400 vehicles were deployed to help with rescue efforts, Abbott said, adding that more than 200 people had been rescued as of Thursday.The Central Texas region last year saw historic flooding along the Guadalupe River, leading to the deaths of hundreds, including 25 young campers and two counselors at Camp Mystic. Maine Senate Debate Kicks Off With First 4 Candidates Saying How They Align With Graham PlatnerThe Maine Senate debate kicked off with moderators asking candidates what part of Graham Platner’s campaign they would also adopt.Former Maine State Senator Troy Jackson said he aligned with Platner’s stance on “fighting against the healthcare industry and the prescription drug industry.”“Nothing else matters if you don’t have good health care,” Jackson said.Former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah said: “There are a lot of areas where Graham’s policies and mine overlap.”“One that I think is particularly relevant this week is the need to finally abolish ICE,” Shah said, referencing ICE’s killing of Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero on July 13.Jordan Wood said Platner taught him the importance of “moral lines,” and that’s why he feels comfortable calling Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide after being “hesitant” at first. Secretary of State of Maine Shenna Bellows argued that Platner was right about democracy being “deeply corrupted by those in power in Washington, the billionaires and the massive corporations.”“[Platner] energized a movement that was already there,” Bellows said.See All Updates