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Elon Musk sent dozens of self-driving Cybercabs without steering wheels or brake pedals onto the streets of Austin, Texas, on Thursday, betting that Americans will overcome their fears of rides with "no control" and hop inside.

Vance said the administration's approach was also aimed at preventing a wider global energy crisis, accusing Iran of continuing to target commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to reports, the South Korean government had been discussing the scale and nature of a potential contribution with countries including the United States, Britain and France.

Iranian officials say four people died and nearly 70 were wounded by a strike that hit a home during a wedding.

This live blog is now closed.Sign up for US Breaking News emailsRepublican oversight chair James Comer has also weighed in on Leon Black not sitting for a deposition about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire financier, who has denied wrongdoing, filed suit against the oversight committee Thursday alleging the subpoenas were improper.“It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people. Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny,” Comer said in a statement. “Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.” Continue reading...

Republican candidate Thomas Ross and former campaign manager allegedly devised plan to stash drugs in rival Louise Secker’s purse or vehicleA Missouri House race has been rocked by the Wednesday arrest of Republican candidate Thomas Ross, whom prosecutors accuse of attempting to frame his primary opponent Louise Secker for cocaine possession.In June, Ross allegedly gave his former campaign manager, identified by the initials “CS” in court documents, a bag of cocaine and Adderall. The two allegedly devised a plan for the former manager to stash the drugs in Secker’s purse or vehicle. Continue reading...

Will Saletan from The Bulwark unloaded on Thursday about President Donald Trump's new oil deal with Venezuela — a turn of events that, he said, lays bare how "absolutely disgusting" Trump's plot has been all along.Trump, said Saletan, "said it more than doubles American oil reserves ... and he wrote this: 'One of the things I'm going to do with the Venezuelan oil is fill up the strategic national reserves,'" which were depleted severely by Trump's war with Iran. He claims that this oil is a "gift from Venezuela to the people of the United States."Right-wing outlets aren't even trying to hide what this is anymore, said Saletan. They aren't claiming that Trump's operation to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro was about liberating the people, he added, leading him to conclude that it was always about oil.For example, Saletan noted, right-wing commentator Ben Ferguson said of the deal, "I think this vice president and president understand this is a moment in Venezuela where you could have a lot of leverage, and you could get something good, and clearly they're willing to play ball. Now, that's big — they're willing to play along because we have leverage." The leverage, Saletan noted, is the fact that America just attacked their country.Meanwhile, he said, Rachel Campos-Duffy, the wife of Trump's Transportation Secretary, acknowledged on Fox News, "I think in Venezuela, the reviews on this are very mixed — mostly negative — among them, not because they're not happy about the potential economic upsides, but they don't trust Delcy Rodríguez" — that being the acting president the U.S. installed in place of Maduro, despite her having all the same policies as her predecessor apart from being more open to do oil deals.Even Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) — who has talked a big game about genuine liberation for Latin American countries — is now saying, "The United States helped them liberate themselves from Maduro. So the reward is to give fair benefits to the oil companies," including "100 years" of being able to exploit the country's oil reserves. "This is the way Trump and his allies in Congress think — it's always, always about the money," said Saletan.But perhaps the most damning admission, said Saletan, came from former Trump deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates, who said Venezuelan oil contracts should "enshrine this deal so a change of government will not imperil those billions of dollars of investment we're going to have to see out of our private sector to make this work." In other words, it needs to be set up so even if the current regime is replaced with a democracy, the oil still flows no matter what the Venezuelan people want."Look, I don't know what your political views are. Maybe you believe in capitalism, maybe you don't," concluded Saletan. "But one thing we should all agree on is that this corrupt, coercive deal is disgusting and ruthless, and it's wrong. It is a total perversion of capitalism combined with the worst kind of socialism." - YouTube www.youtube.com

MS NOW anchor and former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele barely concealed his anger on Thursday while laying out the suffering that President Donald Trump's war in Iran has inflicted on U.S. Navy sailors.The USS Abraham Lincoln has become a poster child for the issue, having been deployed to the Persian Gulf for a record amount of time, leaving sailors with strained resources and a mental health crisis."There are 18 families who have proof ... when we look at how this began, where we are now, and the lack, I think, of regard for the sacrifice of those 18 service members," said Steele.Steele then went on to tear down remarks on the subject made today by Vice President JD Vance.His red flags, he said, were "on high, high red alert when he says, we're not going to set an artificial timeline. What if I told you three weeks? Well, the president told us four. Mr. Vice President, do you remember that? Did he miss that part of the conversation? In the month of February? March? He told us four weeks when he says, you know, I have a problem with the phrase an end to the war. I want to push back on that just a little, because major combat operations are currently not ongoing.""Well, sir, that's not the definition of a war," said Steele. Regardless of whether combat operations are taking place, he said, "once I can still shoot at you and you still be in war, that's what Iran is doing. You have no response to that."It's high time, he continued, for Congress to "step in and bring some coherent sanity to this madness before more lives are lost.""We have the USS Lincoln just docking, taking, getting to a port after how many months at sea. And no one in this government had the common sense to realize we can't leave that big-behind ship out there all this time, with none of the soldiers or sailors getting off at a port. Someone has got to take control of this. The country at this November election is going to be looking to someone to do that, because clearly these numbnuts can't do it." - YouTube www.youtube.com