Donald Trump has selected freshman Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate. Republicans celebrated the decision, while Democrats warned against Vance’s extremist views, with President Biden labeling him a “clone” of Trump. The 39-year-old former marine gained fame after writing the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” about growing up in Appalachia. He won a close Republican Senate primary in 2022 in part thanks to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, who poured a record-breaking $10 million to support his campaign.

JD Vance’s political positions have shifted dramatically over the years. Once a Trump critic, JD Vance went on to embrace the MAGA movement and far-right positions on abortion, the climate, immigration and other issues.

Donald Trump appeared alongside Vance Monday at the Republican National Convention as he made his first public showing since Saturday’s assassination attempt. Trump appeared with a bandaged ear as he sat next to JD Vance and Republicans formally nominated Trump and Vance for the 2024 ticket. We’ll have more on JD Vance and the first day of the RNC after headlines.

Meanwhile, in related news, Elon Musk said he will give $45 million per month to the new pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC.

Outside the Fiserv Forum, where the RNC is taking place, activists gathered to protest the Republican agenda.

Michael Wood: “We’re really proud to be marching within sight and sound of the convention, letting the Republicans know that we are here, we care about the climate, we care about immigrant rights, we care about Palestine. There is a large contingent of different organizations marching, because they want to let them know that these are the issues people care about today.”

Meanwhile, Cheri Honkala, national spokesperson for the Poor People’s Army, was arrested Monday as she attempted to deliver a citizen’s arrest to Republican officials whom the group has accused of crimes against humanity. Just hours earlier, she spoke to Democracy Now! about that action and more. “Click here to see that interview.

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against Donald Trump over his mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House. On Monday, Trump-appointed U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon sided with Trump’s lawyers, who argued that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of the special counsel was “unlawful” because Smith had not been appointed by Biden or confirmed by the Senate. Cannon also ruled Smith had been improperly funded by the Treasury Department.

Cannon’s legal rationale drew from a concurring opinion by far-right Justice Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court’s historic ruling Trump v. United States, which grants presidents broad immunity from prosecution. A federal grand jury had indicted Trump on 40 felony counts: 32 violations of the Espionage Act for “willful retention” of national defense information and another eight counts of obstructing justice. The Justice Department is expected to appeal the ruling, but the legal victory has given Trump another boost as he officially accepts the presidential nomination this week at the RNC.

Democrats slammed the decision by Judge Cannon. President Biden called the dismissal “specious.” Meanwhile, Florida Republican lawmaker Matt Gaetz reacted to the news by calling Aileen Cannon a “Future Supreme Court Justice.” We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

Investigations continue into the suspected gunman in Saturday’s failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The FBI is analyzing 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks’s cellphone, though no apparent motive has yet to emerge. Crooks was a nursing home employee who had registered to vote as a Republican, though his acquaintances say he was fairly quiet with no overt political leanings. Federal investigators believe he acted alone, but they say they are still exploring all avenues.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have called on the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, to testify about apparent failures ahead of, and in response to, the incident. Cheatle has rejected calls to resign.

Video emerged Monday of witnesses warning law enforcement of the gunman two minutes before he began shooting from the roof of a nearby building. A local NBC affiliate reports the shooter was spotted by law enforcement nearly 30 minutes before he opened fire.

In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt Monday, President Biden was questioned about language he has used while campaigning against Trump, including telling Democratic donors, “It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.”

President Joe Biden: “It was a mistake to use the word. I didn’t mean — I didn’t say 'crosshairs'; I said ’bull’s-eye.’ I meant focus on him, focus on what he’s doing, focus on — on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate, focus — I mean, there’s a whole range of things that — look, I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said that I won’t accept the outcome of this election automatically. You can’t only love your country when you win.”

Biden also repeated his earlier call on Sunday to “cool down” the political rhetoric.

The head of UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency, said its Gaza headquarters has been “flattened and turned into a battlefield” as Israeli forces continue their scorched-earth campaign in Gaza City. Israeli attacks are also continuing throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Deir al-Balah, where survivors searched through rubble for their loved ones after fresh airstrikes brought down at least one building Monday.

Walid Thabet: “My mother, an elderly woman, was sitting with me upstairs. She went downstairs, and after five minutes, I pulled her out from under the rubble. We also pulled my sister out from under the rubble, and my sister’s children, too. Those who died are my mother, my sister and my sister’s children. Children! One was 2-and-a-half years old, and the other 2. I don’t know what happened to them. God willing, may God save them.”

Turkey has condemned Israel’s military for destroying the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital — Gaza’s only specialized cancer center — after using it as a military base for months. Turkish officials said it’s further proof of Israel’s “systematic policy aimed at the annihilation of the Palestinian people,” and vowed to pursue Israel in international courts.

In Khan Younis, waste management officials say trash is piling up amid the massive destruction and the Israeli blockade on fuel and water, adding to a growing public health and sanitation crisis.

Omar Matar: “Khan Younis city has faced great damage, amounting to over 200 million, in the infrastructure, sewage systems, waste trucks and cleaning systems, in addition to the lack of fuel, which is the main pillar in operating the cleaning and sewage systems. … The piling up of waste has led to bad smells, spread of insects and rodents, in addition to leakage of liquids from the waste to the underground water reservoir, which is the main source of water for the residents of Khan Younis and Gaza enclave generally.”

Here in the U.S., Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials the civilian death toll in Gaza is “unacceptably high” during an Israeli visit to Washington, D.C. Israel has killed at least 38,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, though the true death toll is likely much higher. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still expected to address Congress on July 24, despite the reported concern about the death toll and mounting objections among Democrats to Netanyahu’s appearance.

The European Union has announced sanctions against five Israeli settlers and three other entities responsible for “serious and systematic human rights abuses” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Those sanctioned include the group Tzav 9, which the EU said regularly blocks humanitarian aid trucks with food, water and fuel headed to Gaza. Also on the list were Ben-Zion Gopstein, founder of the far-right Jewish supremacist group Lehava, which means “the flame,” and Isaschar Manne. All three have also been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he plans to host a second international peace summit in Kyiv this fall to discuss Ukraine’s future. Ninety-two countries attended a similar summit in Switzerland last month, though Russia — which was not invited — and China did not attend. Zelensky spoke after returning from last week’s NATO summit in D.C.

President Volodymyr Zelensky: “I believe that we’re ready to hold the second summit sooner rather than later, and I believe that representatives of Russia should be present at the second summit.”

Last month’s summit discussed three of Zelensky’s 10-part “formula” for peace, covering food security, nuclear safety and the release of prisoners of war and children. It’s unclear if Moscow would be willing to attend a follow-up summit, though a Russian official last week rejected the idea.

A Russian court convicted U.S.-Russian journalist Masha Gessen in absentia Monday, sentencing them to eight years in prison for remarks made in 2022 about the invasion of Ukraine. Gessen, who lives in the U.S., was found guilty of spreading “false information” when they spoke in an interview about the massacre of hundreds of people by Russian forces in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bucha. Click here see our interviews with Masha Gessen about the war in Ukraine and many other topics.

In El Salvador, children have been subjected to serious human rights violations under President Nayib Bukele’s violent crackdown on gangs. That’s according to Human Rights Watch, which has just released a report detailing the arbitrary detention, torture and other forms of abuse against children who’ve been arrested during El Salvador’s “state of exception” that has been enforced since March 2022. The report says detained children are held in overcrowded prisons, are not provided adequate food or healthcare, and have been denied access to their lawyers and visits with family members. Many have been convicted in unfair trials without due process.

In New York, a coalition of immigration and civil rights groups has filed a complaint on behalf of immigrants detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility over chronic abuse at the facility. The complaint accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement of engaging in a brutal retaliation campaign against detained people who participated in a peaceful hunger strike to protest dire conditions inside the facility, being denied access to free calls to their families, and ICE’s practice of locking immigrants in their cells for 18 hours a day. ICE officials threatened the hunger strikers with physical violence and placing them in solitary confinement.

Climate activists are among those sounding the alarm over the selection of JD Vance. The group Sunrise Movement cited his track record of voting to gut the EPA, his denial of climate change, and the fossil fuel industry’s contributions to Vance’s campaign. JD Vance previously acknowledged the need to take on the climate crisis, before taking a hard right turn on the issue. On Monday, the group Climate Defiance posted a video of its activists disrupting a JD Vance gala dinner, vowing to continue targeting Vance now that he is the vice-presidential nominee.

Climate Defiance protester 1: “JD Vance is a climate supervillain! He is a criminal! He is selling our future right in front of our eyes! Come on, JD! Face us!”

Climate Defiance protester 2: “He’s a climate criminal!”

Climate Defiance protesters: “Off fossil fuels, Vance! Off fossil fuels! Off fossil fuels, Vance! Off fossil fuels!”

A federal panel has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a group of Palestinian Americans against President Biden and other officials for failing to prevent genocide in Gaza. The court previously dismissed the suit on jurisdictional grounds but ruled that it is “plausible” that Israel is engaging in genocide. The lawsuit was brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Click here to see our coverage of the case.

In New York, a federal judge on Friday dismissed Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy protection case, clearing the way for creditors to potentially seize his assets. Giuliani had sought bankruptcy protection after a jury in December awarded two Georgia election workers $148 million in their defamation case against Giuliani following the 2020 election.

Environmental groups renewed calls for a ban on deep sea mining Monday as the International Seabed Authority opened its annual summit in Jamaica. More than two dozen nations attending the talks have called for a moratorium on deep sea mining, which creates massive sediment plumes and can devastate marine ecosystems. In a statement, the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition wrote, “The deep ocean sustains crucial processes that make the entire planet habitable, from driving ocean currents that regulate our weather to storing carbon and buffering our planet against the impacts of climate change.”

Bolivia’s president has announced plans to exploit a vast natural gas reserve north of Bolivia’s administrative capital, La Paz. President Luis Arce said Monday the discovery of 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas would once again make Bolivia a major exporter of fossil fuels.

President Luis Arce: “It will mark the beginning of a new chapter for the northern sub-Andean region. It offers the hope of maintaining our country as an important gas exporter, driving a second era of hydrocarbon production and positioning La Paz as a department that is now a hydrocarbon producer.”

Bolivia is already South America’s largest exporter of natural gas, although its shipments are dwarfed by the world leader, the United States.

Scorching temperatures continue to bake large swaths of the Midwest and eastern U.S. as a heat dome blankets the region. Some 100 million people are under heat advisories from New York to Florida to Texas. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and much of eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia are under excessive heat warnings with temperatures expected to rise to some 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the West Coast, the blistering heat has intensified wildfires across Oregon, where at least eight blazes are burning. Oregon’s largest blaze, the Cow Valley Fire, has burnt over 132,000 acres. Wildfires are also raging in parts of California and Hawaii.

In Gambia, lawmakers have voted to uphold legislation banning female genital mutilation. The vote comes after Gambia’s National Assembly in March approved a move to repeal the landmark 2015 ban on female genital cutting. Some lawmakers say they were willing to lose their seat by speaking out against the practice.

Gibbi Mballow: “What is wrong shall never be right. This is wrong, and I will stand to say it’s wrong. Even it has taken me to lose this seat, I was ready to resign and said, 'Look, I will not be a part of a legislative that will tend to return my country in those old age.'”

In Nigeria, at least 22 students were killed after a two-story school in the community of Busa Buji collapsed during morning classes Friday. Over 100 students at the Saints Academy became trapped in the rubble. Many of the school’s students are 15 or younger. Local officials vowed to investigate as the families of the victims gathered near the school to mourn their loved ones. This is Victor Dennis, whose son Emmanuel was killed in the school collapse.

Victor Dennis: “I went there to see the collapsed building, a two-story building. So, people were helping to rescue the students. My two girls, one jumped out; they rescued the other one. My boy was down. It took some time before they brought him out from the rubble. He had an injury on his head. I saw his dead body in the mortuary.”

Peter Buxtun, the U.S. government whistleblower who exposed the Tuskegee syphilis study, has died at 86. Starting in 1966, Buxtun started sounding the alarm when he learned about the ongoing experiment as a federal public health employee. The government-led study, which started in 1932, observed 400 Black men in rural Alabama who had syphilis but were denied antibiotic treatment so scientists could observe the disease’s progression. It wasn’t until 1972 that the study came into full view of the public and Congress, when AP reporter Edith Lederer published a story about the case using information passed on to her by Buxtun.