Good morning! We hope you had a great weekend. Here’s what we have planned for today…
President Obama to Request $2 Billion from Congress for Border Crisis
President Obama will ask Congress for $2 billion to help officials cope with the massive influx of immigrants flooding the U.S.-Mexico borders This includes helping the unaccompanied children, and providing food, beds and sanitary facilities. Chris and I discuss Obama’s pledge, along with some recent comments made by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, where she referred to the border control issue, not as a “crisis” but an “opportunity.”
New VA Secretary to be Named
Today, President Obama will appoint a new secretary to oversee the Department of Veteran’s Affairs — Robert McDonald, a West Point graduate who served as chief executive of Procter & Gamble. At 7:10, Ann Compton will join us to talk about his appointment and what it means having someone from outside Washington coming in to replace Eric Shinsecki.
Iraq Pushes to Take Back Tikrit, ISIS Declares New Religious State in Iraq and Syria
This weekend, the Iraqi government made its first concerted effort to take back territory and is now battling ISIS in the northern city of Tikrit, the home of former dictator Saddam Hussein that had fallen to insurgents in early June. As of Sunday, ISIS declared the creation of a new religious state in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Russia delivered a batch of Sukhoi warplanes on Sunday to aid Baghdad. At 7:55 Tom Rivers will join us from London to discuss the latest.
Facebook Under Scrutiny Over Recent Study
A recent study conducted by researchers affiliated with Facebook, Cornell University and the University of California at San Francisco detailed how Facebook secretly manipulated news feeds of nearly half a million users to study the emotions of users based on what was popping up into their newsfeeds. This has led many to publicly question the ethics and legality of the study. At 8:25 Scott Goldberg will join us to talk about the study.
Finally, at 8:51, Mark Jenkins will join the program to discuss local, state and national gas prices as we look ahead to the Fourth of July weekend.
