1. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

2. Highlight: Lavelle Strikes from Distance for 2-0

   

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3. Highlight: Morgan Puts USWNT Up 1-0

   

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4. Alex Morgan Strikes First

   Bleacher Report @BleacherReport

   Who else but @alexmorgan13

   (via @brfootball) https://t.co/CSAhOGwsJk

6. 

   via Bleacher Report

7. Caitlin Murray @caitlinmurr

8. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

9. Michael Lewis @Soccerwriter

10. USWNT Lineup vs. Thailand Drops

    U.S. Soccer WNT @USWNT

    HERE. WE. GO.
    YOUR #FIFAWWC Starting XI

    Lineup Notes: https://t.co/Wwm6AeG0FN https://t.co/7UymLztDCK

12. Top of the Money Tree

    B/R Football @brfootball

    The three highest-paid athletes in the world are all footballers https://t.co/tWkf2IvQEv

13. Here Some USWNT…

    FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer

    The reigning champs are in the building!

    Our coverage of USA vs Thailand begins at 2pm ET on FOX! https://t.co/qpxrTSgYBt

14. FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer

15. B/R Football @brfootball

16. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

18. Hope Solo Predicts a Huge USWNT Win

19. This Is Megan Rapinoe

    via Bleacher Report

20. They Could Run Riot…

    B/R Football @brfootball

    The last time @USWNT played Thailand https://t.co/NL2YtgiiYm

21. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

22. Squawka Football @Squawka

24. Erin Fish, FIFA @FIFAWWC_USA

25. Lavelle Made It 2-0

    B/R Football @brfootball

    Too hot to handle from @roselavelle https://t.co/Hz8bfn2jia

26. Jose de Jesus Ortiz @OrtizKicks

27. Thomas Floyd @thomasfloyd10

28. Julian Cardillo @JulianCardillo

30. U.S. Soccer WNT @USWNT

31. Major League Soccer @MLS

32. NWSL @NWSL

33. U.S. Soccer WNT @USWNT

34. Michael Lewis @Soccerwriter

36. FIFA Women’s World Cup @FIFAWWC

37. Caitlin Murray @caitlinmurr

38. Seth Vertelney @svertelney

39. FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer

40. Jose de Jesus Ortiz @OrtizKicks

42. Kait Borsay @kaitborsay

43. Seth Vertelney @svertelney

44. DW Sports @dw_sports

45. U.S. Soccer WNT @USWNT

46. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

48. The Equalizer @EqualizerSoccer

49. Thomas Floyd @thomasfloyd10

50. NWSL @NWSL

51. Kyle Bonn @the_bonnfire

52. Michael Lewis @Soccerwriter

54. Erin Fish, FIFA @FIFAWWC_USA

55. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

56. FIFA Women’s World Cup @FIFAWWC

57. Caitlin Murray @caitlinmurr

58. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

60. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

61. FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer

62. Caitlin Murray @caitlinmurr

63. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

64. Seth Vertelney @svertelney

66. Caitlin Murray @caitlinmurr

67. Nick Harris @sportingintel

68. The Equalizer @EqualizerSoccer

69. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

70. Sydney Leroux Dwyer @sydneyleroux

72. SB Nation @SBNation

The United States has imposed sanctions on Samer Foz, a Syrian industrialist behind high-end developments, including the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus, for allegedly enriching President Bashar al-Assad.

“This Syrian oligarch is directly supporting the murderous Assad regime and building luxury developments on land stolen from those fleeing his brutality,” Sigal Mandelker, the undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement on Tuesday. 

The US Treasury Department blacklisted properties of Foz and his Aman Holding Company including the Four Seasons, the high-end hotel that has stayed operational during Syria’s long-running civil war.

The hotel has become a base for United Nations employees in Syria, a point of controversy for Assad opponents who question where the money paid by international staff goes.

Foz-owned ASM International General Trading and its affiliates throughout the Middle East were also included in the sanctions. ASM is involved in grain and sugar trade, and oil field operations.

“Samer Foz, his relatives, and his business empire have leveraged the atrocities of the Syrian conflict into a profit-generating enterprise,” Mandelker said.

Under the sanctions, any of Foz’s US assets will be frozen and any US transactions with him or his properties forbidden. 

The Treasury Department said Foz had shipped into Syria oil from its ally Iran, despite unilateral US sanctions on all exports out of the Islamic Republic.   

In the notice, the Treasury Department also said that Foz had taken advantage of an order issued by Assad in 2012 to expel residents of poorer areas to make way for luxury construction.

“This tactic – taking over property owned by Syrian citizens and handing the land to wealthy regime insiders to develop in exchange for revenue sharing – has emerged as Assad’s go-to strategy for high-end reconstruction in war-torn Syria,” the Treasury Department said.

The move comes as Assad, backed militarily by Russia, cotninues for a sixth consecutive week a bloody bombing campaign against a string of rebel-held towns and villages in Syria’s northwest.

Rescuers say the major aerial campaign has killed over 1,500 people, with more than half of them being civilians.

Meanwhile, more than 300,000 people have fled the frontlines in Idlib province, the last rebel-held major bastion, to the safety of areas near the border with Turkey, according to the UN.

Throughout more than eight years of conflict, opposition groups have fought troops loyal to Assad in a bid to overthrow him following a peaceful uprising that quickly turned violent.  

In 2015, when Russia intervened, Assad’s forces began taking back large swathes of land from armed rebel factions across the country while consistently breaking ceasefire agreements by launching attacks inside the so-called de-escalation zones.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed since the Syria conflict started in 2011, while millions more have been forced from their homes.

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2020 elections

The president is questioning Biden’s mental and physical fitness, reviving the tactic he’s used on Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.

President Donald Trump tore into Joe Biden on Tuesday, questioning his mental fortitude ahead of dueling events in Iowa where Biden similarly laid into the president.

“When a man has to mention my name 76 times in his speech, that means he’s in trouble,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House. “I have to tell you, he’s a different guy. He looks different then he used to, he acts different than he used to, he is even slower than he used to be. So I don’t know. But when he mentions my name that many times, I guess I should be complimented.”

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Trump has repeatedly tried to diminish Biden by questioning his mental and physical fitness, a tactic he’s also deployed against his former rival Hillary Clinton and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Earlier in the day, Biden’s campaign previewed comments in which he directly targeted the president as he returned to Iowa after taking a brief break from the campaign trail. In excerpts of the speech, Biden mentioned the president dozens of times, going after his affinity for strongman foreign leaders and the impacts of his trade wars.

Trump said Tuesday he’d rather run against Biden — who he dismissed as a “loser” and a “dummy” that was picked up “off the trash heap” by former President Barack Obama during the 2008 election — more than any other of the nearly two dozen Democrats running for president.

“I think he’s the weakest mentally. I like running against people who are weak mentally. I think he is the weakest up here,” he said, pointing to his head. “The other ones have much more energy. I don’t agree with their policies, but I — I call him 1 percent Joe, because until Obama came along he did very well.”

The mudslinging between the two men comes as Biden maintains a solid grip atop the Democratic primary field, and as Biden’s rivals for the nomination begin to engage him more as well.

Last week, he reversed course on his longstanding opposition to public funding for abortions after a pile-on from the left. He also faced doubts from liberals about how aggressive his approach to climate change would be, given the Obama administration’s relatively moderate policies. And he’s been ribbed for his relatively light campaigning schedule compared to the rest of the candidates, in recent weeks skipping out on two major events where his rivals had gathered to make their case to voters. Biden has brushed these complaints off, but Trump pounced on them Tuesday.

“Now it looks like he’s failing,” Trump asserted to reporters, despite Biden’s lead in nearly every primary poll. “It looks like his friends from the left are going to overtake him pretty soon. But I heard his whole campaign is to hit Trump.”

The president has attacked Biden often and early in his campaign, much to the chagrin of some of Trump’s aides. The former veep is frequently held up as Democrats’ best shot at defeating Trump next year, given his appeal to the working class voters that were key to Trump’s 2016 victory. And Trump’s constant focus on Biden gives off the appearance that he is rattled by polling showing warning signs for his reelection bid from the Rust Belt to Texas.

Biden, who has appeared to relish the attention from Trump, was ready to mock the president at his Iowa event Tuesday, accusing Trump of damaging the United States’ reputation on the world stage in addition to lobbing attacks at Trump for his administration’s policies.

“Did he do anything to signal that he’s prepared to walk away from the thugs he’s embraced on the world stage — from Putin to Kim Jong Un? No. He did none of that,” Biden said. “Instead, he gets up in the middle of the night to attack Bette Midler. He attacks the mayor of London. He attacks the American Speaker of the House. It was a stunning display of childishness for the whole world to see.”

An attack on a village in central Mali that left scores of people dead has left the country reeling in shock, underscoring the security challenges confronting it and stoking fears of further violence amid rising ethnic tensions between its Dogon and Fulani people. 

The hours-long assault on the village of Sobane-Kou began late on Sunday and continued well into the night.

Survivors described armed men arriving on motorbikes and in trucks and surrounding the village of roughly 300 inhabitants in a largely ethnic Dogon enclave in Mali’s Mopti region. The attackers killed anyone who attempted to flee, set their homes ablaze and slaughtered farm animals, the survivors said.

The government on Monday gave an early death toll of 95, although there are fears the number of those killed could be higher.

There has been no claim of responsibility so far. The attack, however, bore the hallmarks of a cycle of violence – much of it driven by ethnic tensions – that has claimed hundreds of lives in the past 18 months.

In March, nearly 160 members of the Fulani ethnic group were slaughtered by a group identified as Dogon, in one of the worst acts of bloodshed in Mali’s recent history.

“Following that attack, a group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen and their leader Amadou Kouffa – himself a Fulani -said that the Fulanis will seek revenge for these attacks,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from the capital, Bamako.

After the Sobane-Kou killings, “a Dogon leader has said these killings are an act of war and that he believes the Fulanis are responsible,” Haque added.

He said the latest killing has “shocked the nation” and is “affecting the fabric of Malian society”.

The rivalry between the Dogon, who are farmers, and the Fulani, who are a sedentary herder group, can be traced back to “deep grievances over land”, Haque said.

“We are at the height of the dry season so there is really a tension over land a scarcity of food, and both communities are suffering from a lack of food and access,” he said.

This is further compounded by government inaction, which Haque described as being “completely overrun by this situation”.

“The crux of this is that the state is not present. The military is not able to provide safety and security for both the Fulanis and the Dogons. Just in the last few months, 488 people are believed to have been killed in this intercommunal conflict.”

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita cut short a visit to Switzerland and was expected to return to Bamako on Tuesday.

“This country cannot be run by a cycle of revenge and vendetta,” he told ORTM public television in Geneva on Monday, urging Malians to unite to “allow our nation to survive, because this is a question of survival.”

‘Spiral of violence’

In a statement on Monday, the head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) condemned the attack as an act of “unspeakable barbarity”.

“The situation has passed the threshold of tolerable, and it is time for the nation to wake up,” Mahamat Saleh Annadif said.

The MINUSMA chief also said that “everybody is responsible” for the “spiral of violence”.

According to spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was outraged by the attack and called on all parties in Mali to “show restraint and to refrain from retaliatory acts”.

French forces had intervened in Mali, a former French colony, in 2013 to push back an armed advance from the north but the fighters have since regrouped.

There are currently about 14,700 troops and police deployed in Mali, which ranks as the most dangerous UN mission, with 125 peacekeepers killed in attacks since deployment in 2013.

Donor countries to MINUSMA are to meet at the UN Security Council on Wednesday to decide whether to renew the peacekeeping mission in Mali or not.

The decision is expected to be made by June 27.

According to Haque, the French want to see the mission’s mandate renewed, while the United States wants a mission “that can intervene and help forces outside of Mali”.

2020 elections

The Democratic mayor laid out his vision for American policy around the world at Indiana University.

Pete Buttigieg attacked President Donald Trump for conducting foreign policy by tweet and laid out his own vision for U.S. policy abroad in a speech Tuesday morning, highlighted by his call to repeal the 2001 law that has been used to launch countless military interventions over nearly two decades since the start of the war in Afghanistan.

In an hour-long address at Indiana University, the South Bend, Ind., mayor and 2020 presidential candidate committed to returning to the nuclear deal forged with Iran, reentering the Paris Climate Accords and finding a two-state solution to conflict in Israel. Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan as a Navy intelligence officer, also framed parts of his foreign policy platform, particularly around military engagement, through personal terms.

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“As someone who deployed to that war on the orders of a president — who believed, way back in 2014, that our involvement in Afghanistan was coming to an end — the time has come for Congress to repeal and replace that blank check on the use of force and ensure a robust debate on any future operations,” Buttigieg said. “We should never again send troops into conflict without a clear definition of their mission and an understanding of what comes after.”

Buttigieg sees foreign policy as a potential area of contrast in the Democratic presidential primary, which has largely focused on domestic policy so far. The mayor jabbed at Congress for being “asleep at the switch” by not addressing the “endless war” — though all seven of the Democratic senators running in 2020 did join Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) failed push to repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in 2017.

But Buttigieg trained much of his criticism on Trump, who he slammed as having “little regard for strategy and no preparation for their long-term consequences.” He also attacked Trump’s relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un.

“You will not see me exchanging love letters with a brutal dictator who starves and murders his own people, but you will see my administration work to create the conditions that would make it possible to welcome North Korea into the international community,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg also chided his own party for lacking a coherent foreign policy strategy of its own.

“For the better part of my lifetime, it has been difficult to identify a consistent foreign policy in the Democratic Party either,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg also emphasized the United States’ need for “next-generation” leadership, a message the 37-year-old has leaned into during his presidential run.

“In our lifetimes, the choices of the generations now living may well fashion more than our share of history,” Buttigieg said. “The world needs America to be the best we’ve ever been, and America’s path falls to us.”

Buttigieg also touched on a smattering of other national security-related topics in his speech, including improving veterans’ health care, upgrading defense systems for cyberwarfare and increasing diversity in hiring for foreign policy positions.

The House is set to take its most aggressive step yet to haul special counsel Robert Mueller’s witnesses to Capitol Hill, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that House Democrats were “not even close” to backing an impeachment inquiry.

The House on Tuesday is expected to advance a measure authorizing committee chairs to sue the Trump administration in federal court to enforce a series of subpoenas, including for Trump’s tax returns, as well as for access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s evidence and testimony from crucial witnesses who worked in the White House.

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And in remarks at a policy conference on Tuesday, Pelosi also offered her most detailed rebuttal to pro-impeachment lawmakers, questioning whether opening such an inquiry would strengthen the House’s hand in the looming legal battles against the Trump administration to produce Mueller’s witnesses and documents to Congress.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Tuesday that he intends to go to court as soon as possible to enforce his panel’s subpoenas for Mueller’s evidence and access to central witnesses in his probe into whether Trump obstructed justice. He acknowledged, though, that the timing of any court action will be determined by House leaders and the House counsel’s office.

Nadler, who remains at odds with Pelosi over whether to open an impeachment inquiry, indicated on Monday that he was willing to delay legal action against Attorney General William Barr over his refusal to turn over Mueller’s unredacted report and underlying evidence, citing a deal with the Justice Department to begin giving lawmakers access to Mueller’s files.

“If they continue to cooperate with us, I expect we will not race to the courthouse,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), a Judiciary Committee member.

But Nadler is likely to move more quickly to enforce the committee’s subpoena for former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who has acquiesced to the White House’s directive that he defy the subpoena, which seeks documents and public testimony.

Nadler has also indicated that he intends to go to court to seek a judge’s permission to access Mueller’s grand jury evidence, which is legally prohibited from being shared with Congress without a waiver from a judge.

Republicans questioned the Democratic decision to empower committees to take legal action, noting that the measure gives veto power on any such decision to an obscure committee of senior lawmakers, including Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) are also on the Democrat-controlled panel.

“What they are doing now is taking power away from Congress and putting it into a group of five people, with three Democrats and two Republicans,” McCarthy said. “Does the power of Congress really lie in just three people? … Because that’s in essence what happens today.”

Russian authorities have dropped drugs charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev has announced. The 36-year-old is set to be freed from house arrest on Tuesday afternoon.

His arrest last week sparked an international outcry over the treatment of independent journalists who are critical of authorities in Russia.

An internal inquiry is under way, Kolokoltsev said, adding that the police officers who detained Golunov had been suspended.

The interior minister also said he would ask President Vladimir Putin to fire top Moscow police generals, including the head of the city’s narcotics agency, over the handling of the case.

“This is a very surprising turnaround of events,” said Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Moscow. “Similar cases here have previously got caught up in Russia’s legal system with no way to get out, with the Kremlin saying they were unable to free a detained person – and Golunov’s supporters were very worried he would meet the same fate.

“This time round, it’s been clear from the past few days that the Kremlin were very nervous about this particular case. The pressure on the government has been immense. Whereas in previous similar cases, people like Amnesty International and other human rights groups have spoken out, this time the pressure has come from inside the country, from TV celebrities and cultural figures.”

Golunov has built a reputation for investigating corruption among Moscow’s most powerful oligarchs and political elite.

He faced 20 years in prison if convicted on the drug manufacturing and supply charges for which he had been arrested. His lawyers maintained the drugs had been planted on him at the time of his detention.

A planned central Moscow protest – which did not receive permission from state officials – will still go ahead tomorrow, Vaessen said, with organisers promising “not to rest” until those who organised Golunov’s detention are brought to justice. Another rally, planned for June 16, has been approved by the authorities.

Solidarity

In an unprecedented show of solidarity on Monday, the Vedomosti, Kommersant and RBC newspapers each published front page headlines: “I am/We are Ivan Golunov,” accompanied by editorials calling for inquiries into the case.

“We do not rule out that Golunov’s detention and subsequent arrest are linked to his professional activities,” they said, adding that the journalist’s detention amounted to an act of intimidation.

Hundreds of Golunov’s supporters rallied outside a Moscow court at the weekend. The journalist, who works for independent Russian-language media outlet Meduza, was then released from jail and placed under house arrest.

Golunov featured in a 2018 Al Jazeera investigative documentary, The Oligarchs, in which he told the story of securing a rare interview with fugitive Ukrainian Serhiy Kurchenko, only to be met at gunpoint with an attempted bribe.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the Kremlin was “carefully monitoring” Golunov’s case which, he admitted, had triggered a “great number of questions”.

Peskov, however, sought to defend the police and courts.

“I believe it would be wrong to make general conclusions about the mistrust towards the entire system based on his case,” he told reporters.

During his two decades in power, Putin has silenced most of his critics and sought to muzzle the media.

Kremlin critics say the few opposition and independent media that still operate in Russia are under huge pressure, with their journalists frequently facing criminal probes, physical attacks and official pressure.

Russia ranks 149th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index compiled by the journalist watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF.

“As TV channels continue to inundate viewers with propaganda, the climate has become very oppressive for those who question the new patriotic and neo-conservative discourse, or just try to maintain quality journalism,” the RSF said in its 2019 summary for Russia, describing the atmosphere for independent journalists as “stifling”. 

“More journalists are now in prison than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union and more and more bloggers are being jailed.”

Many prominent figures have come out in support of Golunov, with musicians joining forces with rights activists and authors.

“Police and security services have declared war against us,” the front page of opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta read on Monday. “Well, we’ll respond.”

Even some staunchly pro-Kremlin television journalists gave their backing to Golunov.

“This is a test for us all,” NTV channel host Irada Zeinalova said onscreen.

Dmitry Djulai, Golunov’s lawyer, said he believed police had attempted to frame the journalist.

Speaking to Reuters after last week’s arrest, he said his client had been beaten, and police had refused to take swabs from his hands or rucksack or to take fingernail samples – all of which would have provided evidence of whether or not he had been in contact with drugs.

Djulai said police refused to call medics in order to catalogue and treat the injuries he said his client had suffered in custody.

RSF also suggested there were irregularities around Golunov’s detention.

“The extremely strange behaviour of the police suggests that Ivan Golunov has been arrested on a trumped-up charge,” Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, told Al Jazeera.

“Why would they otherwise deny him access to his lawyer and refuse to carry out decisive tests? If fabricated evidence really has been used to arrest a journalist who is so well-known throughout Russia, this would mark a significant escalation in the harassment of the country’s independent media.”