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The body of an American mountaineer has been discovered by a pair of fellow US climbers 22 years after he went missing following an avalanche in the Peruvian Andes.

American brothers Ryan Cooper and Wesley Waren found the body of Bill Stampfl on June 27 on Mount Huascaran, according to Joseph Stampfl, Bill’s son.

The climbers had been descending the mountain in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca after an unsuccessful attempt to reach its 22,000 ft summit when they found the body, at about 16,500 ft.

He said the ice had preserved the body and its belongings and Stampfl’s wedding ring, helmet, mountain climbing boots, and jacket were all intact.

The brothers managed to identify Stampfl by finding a bag attached to his body, inside which they found his identification card, a camera, passport, wallet, and glasses – all of which were also intact, Cooper explained.

“Someone loved him and someone wanted him to come home,” Cooper said. “As soon as I found out he was an American climber I knew we had a responsibility to track down the family and give them the news,” Cooper said.

His body was retrieved and brought down the mountain on July 5 by the Peruvian Mountain Rescue Association and Peruvian National Police after coordination with Cooper and Stampfl’s family.

His body was taken to a morgue in the town of Yungay for an autopsy, Peru’s National Police posted on X on Tuesday.

Finding Bill’s family

Cooper, a native of Las Vegas, Nevada, called his wife and informed her of his discovery the same day he came across Stampfl’s body. He asked her for help in finding Stampfl’s family, as he was still on Mount Huascaran with limited cellular service.

After much online research, Cooper’s wife was able to locate Joseph and called him on June 29.

“I told him I know the location of his dad. I told him about the ring and personal items,” Cooper said.

His motive was to help the family find closure, Cooper explained.

With “no body, there’s no way to find peace with that,” Cooper said.

Cooper also spoke to Jennifer and Stampfl’s wife Janet on the phone before sending photos of Stampfl’s ID and other belongings to the family.

‘My heart just sank’

After so many years, the news came as an emotional shock to Stampfl’s family.

“There is no preparation for having your husband killed instantaneously,” Janet said, adding that she never thought her husband’s body would be discovered. “It’s an answer to so many prayers by so many people.”

Janet said her husband loved climbing mountains. “He enjoyed it so much. He said he always felt closest to God when he got to the top of the mountain,” Janet said.

“After 22 years…I was a little shocked, it took me a while to process everything,” Joseph said, adding “now it’s time to bring him home hopefully.”

Following an autopsy in Yungay, Stampfl’s body was transferred to the city of Juarez, Joseph explained. Stampfl will be taken to a funeral home in Lima where he will be cremated, and the ashes will be sent to the family in the United States.

‘A dangerous landscape’

While Cooper is grateful to have finally been able to bring closure to the Stampfl family, the discovery was also tinged with sadness.

He had hoped that Richardson’s body might have been attached to Stampfl by a rope, but that was not the case and “he’s still missing as of today.”

He also fears that global warming may have played a role in his discovery, by thawing the ice on what is considered the world’s highest tropical mountain range.

“He was fully exposed and not in ice anymore. The thawing process happened,” Cooper said.

Since the 1950s, almost all of the world’s glaciers have been retreating, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On average, the glaciers in the Andean region – Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – have lost over 50 per cent of their coverage since the 1960s.

“The Andes is deteriorating more than any other mountain range in the region,” Cooper said, adding that the changing conditions were part of what had prevented him from summiting Mount Huascaran.

“Glaciers are melting away, the landscape has changed. It poses a dangerous landscape now,” he said.

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A manhunt is underway in north London for a man suspected of being armed with a crossbow, after three women were killed Tuesday evening.

Police said they were searching for a 26-year-old man, named as Kyle Clifford, in connection with the deaths, who could be in north London or the neighboring county of Hertfordshire.

Police were called to a house in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening, where they found three seriously injured women.

All the women, who are believed to be related, later died from their injuries, according to police. According to police, they are aged 25, 28 and 61, and were killed in what is believed to have been a “targeted incident.”

A crossbow is believed to have been used in the triple murder, though police said Wednesday that other weapons may also have been used.

Police have asked the public not to approach the suspect.

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she is being kept “fully updated” by police on the ongoing manhunt.

“The loss of three women’s lives in Bushey last night is truly shocking. My thoughts are with the family & friends of those who have been killed & with the community,” Cooper wrote on X Wednesday.

“I am being kept fully updated. I urge people to support Hertfordshire Police with any information about this case,” she added.

A neighbor of the victims said she “would see them every day passing by and they would say good morning,” according to PA Media.

“It’s really sad what’s happened, very shocking,” she added.

This is a breaking news story, and will be updated.

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Aged just four, Julia Abu Zeiter suffers from a rare neurological disease that can be fatal without medication.

The nine-month war in Gaza nearly took Julia’s life, as the fighting and displacement cut off her access to treatment.

After an arduous journey, she was finally evacuated from the war-torn enclave on June 27, accompanied only by her 21-year-old aunt, Dareen Zeiter.

Julia suffers from a rare neurological disorder called alternating hemiplegia of childhood, or AHC. It causes recurrent episodes of paralysis and life-threatening seizures. No cure exists for the illness, which is estimated to occur in approximately one in a million births. Its patients are referred to as “human time bombs” and need to constantly be monitored for signs of an oncoming episode. As soon as it strikes, lifesaving measures must quickly be administered.

The two Palestinians were among around a dozen patients leaving the floating hospital to continue their treatment in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi. Most of those patients are children, including two suffering from Leukemia.

Gaza’s ‘invisible victims’

Moored off the coast of Arish on the north coast of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the hospital is some 40 kilometers from Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza strip that now lies in ruins after Israel launched its ground operation there in May.

The city also housed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a crucial land bridge through which two-thirds of aid entering Gaza passed. The crossing has been closed since it was seized by the Israeli military.

The 100-bed UAE ship has received 2,400 injured Palestinians since February, according to the hospital director, Dr. Ahmed Mubarak.

Julia is “an invisible victim” of the war, Mubarak said, caught up in what Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, described as Gaza’s “silent killings, the result of deliberate deprivation.” The organization’s head of emergency programs, Mari Carmen Viñoles, said in May that Israel’s “blockades, delays, and restrictions on humanitarian aid and essential medical supplies” have made aid deliveries impossible.

Julia and Dareen are two of countless Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza, which Israel launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel’s war has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry there. Swathes of the enclave have been turned to rubble and almost the entire strip’s population of two million is internally displaced.

Julia and Dareen were forced to leave their home in northern Gaza when the war began. The four-year-old witnessed “explosions and shelling” throughout, her aunt said.

A punishing siege by Israel has choked the enclave, bringing humanitarian aid down to a trickle and preventing Gazans moving in and out. For Julia, this meant running out of her medication, which triggered a series of life-threatening seizures.

With the help of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), a US-based non-governmental organization, Julia was able to finally evacuate through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, Dareen said.

‘Hunger is what destroys us’

Down the hall of makeshift wards from Julia was Ibrahim, who was injured in his family home in Jabalya, northern Gaza, when an airstrike hit their building on November 21. He had turned seven that day.

Ibrahim was aboard the ship with his aunt, Alaa, 21. Alaa and Ibrahim were both injured in the airstrike, having survived after being pulled from the rubble, Alaa said. The aunt sustained critical burns, while Ibrahim broke his arm and leg, she said.

The boy’s injuries did not heal properly, requiring further treatment.

“Look, this is my dad,” Ibrahim said, holding up a photo of his father, who died during the airstrike, on his aunt’s phone.

Before losing their home and family, Alaa and Ibrahim remained in northern Gaza until April, when residents were experiencing severe hunger as aid struggled to reach them amid Israel’s military operations and what humanitarian aid officials said was increased lawlessness and looting of trucks there.

In mid-March, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessed that famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza and said it was projected to occur between then and May.

On Tuesday, the United Nations, citing a report by independent experts, said that the recent deaths of more Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition in Gaza indicates famine has spread across the entire strip, decrying Israel’s “intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people” as a “form of genocidal violence”.

While Julia and Ibrahim have made it out, millions of others remain trapped in the war zone, with few signs of a ceasefire deal in sight.

Nearly 26,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza in six months, the aid group Save the Children said in April, just over 2% of Gaza’s entire child population.

“Even amid the complexities of war, how can we not grasp one universal truth: a child is a child,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said last month, calling for “a ceasefire (that) gets hostages home, and stops the killing of children.”

Dareen, Julia’s aunt, said the responsibility over her niece was too big to shoulder.

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There are worse places to suffer a travel delay than on the International Space Station. 

At least astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams get to gaze at the planet rotating beneath them as they wait for engineers to work out what’s gone wrong with their spacecraft’s thrusters so they can fly home.

In a news conference from the ISS, they certainly seemed to be having a good time, helping out with science experiments and maintenance – and taking photos of tropical storms.

But for Boeing the technical glitches with the Starliner, on its first crewed test flight, are yet another embarrassment.

The company is already under close scrutiny after an aircraft door blew out mid-flight, two crashes and delays in delivering new Air Force One planes for the US president.

It could do without problems in orbit too.

But Starliner’s development has been bumpy, to say the least.

An early, uncrewed mission ran out of fuel, while another had thruster issues as it approached the space station.

Then the first test flight with astronauts on board, initially scheduled last year, was delayed because flammable tape was found to be wrapped around wiring and a serious problem was identified with the parachute used to return safely to Earth.

Mr Wilmore defended Boeing during the news conference, saying all spacecraft have problems while they are being developed.

But SpaceX was commissioned to develop a spacecraft in 2014 at the same time as Boeing. It got its safety certificate four years ago and has flown eight crews so far.

Boeing bristles at any suggestion that the astronauts are stranded in space.

They could be brought home now if necessary, it says.

But it’s trying to understand the problem with the thrusters before they get burned up in the atmosphere on re-entry.

As for the astronauts, they seem really impressed with the Starliner’s performance, apart from the thruster issue.

And they have full confidence that the spacecraft will get them home.

This post appeared first on sky.com

Two astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) for over a month are talking to reporters for the first time on Wednesday afternoon.

Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams blasted off on 5 June in Starliner’s first mission to orbit carrying the astronauts.

After docking on the ISS, the NASA astronauts were supposed to stay in orbit for eight days.

However, Boeing’s Starliner has been plagued by problems and its return to Earth has been repeatedly delayed.

During their extended stay on the ISS, the astronauts have been forced to take shelter in the spacecraft when a Russian satellite exploded nearby.

However, if they needed to evacuate, Starliner may have struggled to get away from the space station.

The spacecraft’s propulsion system is faulty, which is how it backs the capsule away from the ISS and positions itself to dive through Earth’s atmosphere.

Many of Starliner’s thrusters have overheated when fired and leaks of helium, used to pressurise the thrusters, appear to be connected to how frequently they are used, according to NASA’s commercial crew manager Steve Stich.

How stuck are they?

Boeing insists the astronauts are “not stuck” and says “there’s no increased risk when we decide to bring Suni and Butch back to Earth,” according to Mark Nappi, manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program.

Starliner is able to spend 45 days docked on the ISS, or up to 72 days at a push, relying on backup systems.

If the astronauts still couldn’t use it to come back to Earth, they could hitch a lift with other crews up there.

Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft is due to take three people back to Earth in September and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Capsule should return in August.

Butch and Suni aren’t in “any danger”, according to Mr Nappi and also aren’t even very stuck by space station standards.

Last year, NASA’s Frank Rubio landed back on Earth after the longest continuous spaceflight by an American, spending a whopping 371 days in orbit.

His return was delayed for six months because of a coolant leak on his spacecraft.

Between 1994 and 1995, Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov spent a record-breaking 437 days on the Russian-owned Mir space station, although he always intended to be up there for a long time.

Starliner delays

Starliner’s problems come after years of delays and failed launches.

In 2014, NASA asked both SpaceX and Boeing to develop commercial crew capsules, but while SpaceX successfully started shuttling astronauts in 2020, this trip was Boeing’s first crewed launch.

Boeing’s losses on the Starliner programme are believed to be around $1.5bn (£1.2bn).

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The fossil of a herbivorous dinosaur, as big as an American male bison, has been discovered on the Isle of Wight.

It is the most complete dinosaur skeleton discovered in the UK in a century, with 149 bones in total.

The hefty dinosaur, now called Comptonatus chasei, roamed southern England around 125 million years ago and would have weighed as much as an African elephant.

The isle of Wight only became separated from the mainland around 7,000 years ago.

“It was likely to be a herding animal, so possibly large herds of these heavy dinosaurs may have been thundering around if spooked by predators on the floodplains,” said Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth.

The dinosaur belongs to a group of herbivorous dinosaurs known as iguanodontians, large, bulky creatures often described as the “cows of the Cretaceous period” by palaeontologists.

It was discovered by fossil hunter Nick Chase who sadly died of cancer just before the COVID-19 pandemic. The species is named after him.

It took Mr Lockwood and his colleagues several years before the specimen could be prepared for analysis.

He said: “I began looking at the specimen six years ago and described it as part of my PhD thesis, which took five years.

“So it was quite a long journey from finding to publication.”

Paying tribute to Mr Chase, Mr Lockwood said: “Nick had a phenomenal nose for finding dinosaur bones.”

“He collected fossils daily in all weathers and donated them to museums,” he added.

“I was hoping we’d spend our dotage collecting together as we were of similar ages, but sadly that wasn’t to be the case.

“Despite his many wonderful discoveries over the years, including the most complete Iguanodon skull ever found in Britain, this is the first dinosaur to be named after him.”

Nick Chase also discovered the remains of Europe’s largest-ever land-based predator dinosaur on the island, which were revealed last year.

The Isle of Wight has become a fossil hunters’ paradise in recent years, with eight extinct species being named there in the last five years.

Mr Lockwood said the latest “remarkable find” shows southern England may have once had “one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems”.

In fact, the Natural History Museum describes the Isle of Wight as “one of the UK’s richest dinosaur fossil sites”.

Last year, a new species of armoured dinosaur was found on the island and bones from a new species in the Tyrannosaurus rex family were discovered four years ago by two fossil hunters on separate holidays.

In 2021, two species of large predatory dinosaur were revealed as well.

Scientists named one of them the “horned crocodile-faced hell heron”, or Ceratosuchops inferodios in Latin.

One of the palaeontologists involved in the find said he’d been waiting for a discovery like that on the Isle of Wight for a couple of decades, but that finding two in close succession was a “huge surprise”.

This post appeared first on sky.com

President Biden delivered a strong opening address to welcome foreign leaders to NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington D.C. Tuesday evening — a highly-anticipated speech as members of his own party and foreign leaders expressed concerns over his fitness for the presidency and continued re-election campaign. 

Biden spoke Tuesday evening to welcome foreign leaders to the summit, touting the strength of NATO, looking ahead to the future, and seeking to show strength amid chaos within the Democratic Party over his plans to continue running for re-election. 

Biden seemingly bounced back Tuesday evening, delivering a strong address without any major stumbles or setbacks. 

‘Today, NATO is more powerful than ever,’ Biden said Tuesday evening. ‘It’s good that we’re stronger than ever because this moment in history calls for our collective strength. Autocrats want to overturn global order, which is by and large, kept for nearly 80 years and counting. Terrorist groups continue to plot evil schemes, cause mayhem and chaos and suffering in Europe. Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues and Putin wants nothing less than Ukraine’s total subjugation to end Ukraine.’ 

The Russia-Ukraine war began under the Biden administration.

‘Ukraine can and will stop Putin,’ Biden said. ‘Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail.’ 

Biden, during the address, announced a historic donation of air defense equipment to Ukraine. The U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy are coming together to provide Ukraine with equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems. 

Biden also gave NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg the Presidential Medal of Freedom Tuesday night as he opened the summit in Washington D.C. 

‘So much of the progress we made in the Alliance is thanks to the secretary,’ Biden said, adding that Stoltenberg has guided NATO through ‘one of the most consequential periods in its history.’ 

‘The whole world will reap the rewards of your labor for years to come in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom,’ Biden said. ‘For these reasons, I am pleased to award you the highest civilian honor the United States can bestow—a Presidential Medal of Freedom.’ 

The three-day summit, which began Tuesday, will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of NATO’s enduring support and offer some hope to its war-weary citizens that their country might survive the biggest land conflict in Europe in decades. NATO’s day-to-day work is led by Stoltenberg, the former prime minister of Norway, until he is replaced as secretary-general on Oct. 1 by outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Biden’s address Tuesday night came at a consequential time for the future of his presidency and a potential second term. 

Biden and the White House have maintained that he will continue running his 2024 re-election campaign. 

Sources told Fox News Digital that Biden has been personally working the phones to call Democratic colleagues, supporters and donors to quell concerns — and the strategy appears to be working. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., came out in support of the president, along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 

Rank-and-file Democrats in the House also rallied behind the president, as well as a number of top Democratic senators. 

Biden also saw support from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Monday night. 

However, Democratic sources told Fox News Digital that ‘the reality’ is that Election Day is just four months away, and the Democratic Party ‘can’t just parachute a replacement in that can beat Trump this late in the game.’

‘The reality is, it is too late in the game to replace the guy if we want to win — that’s it,’ the source told Fox News Digital.

Additionally, despite reports of top donors considering pulling their support, the source told Fox News Digital that those donors ‘have a multi-decade personal relationship’ with Biden.

‘There is loyalty there, and he has delivered on many pieces of the Democrat agenda,’ the source told Fox News Digital. ‘Kamala has not proven that she is a viable replacement — even though Biden has given her years of world leader meetings and more.’

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House Democrats are still at odds with each other over how to handle President Biden’s re-election campaign after a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, as concerns grow over his viability as a candidate and his mental fitness for office.

Left-wing lawmakers were largely evasive when leaving the meeting at Democratic National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill, telling crowds of reporters they had ‘no comment’ on what went on. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., avoided reporters by departing through an alternate entrance.

Others who have publicly expressed concerns about Biden’s candidacy said they did so during the meeting as well. Democrats who spoke with Fox News Digital characterized those discussions as ‘respectful.’

But lawmakers also conceded that they were on a rapidly-shrinking timeline to either mount a caucus-wide push against Biden or get in line behind him as the nominee. Democrats’ nominating convention, in Chicago, is in mid-August.

‘I explained how I came to the decision to go public with my concerns, about how I made a lot of calls, and behind the scenes, and tried to get my voice heard before going public,’ Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., one of six House Democrats who’s asked Biden to step aside, told Fox News Digital. 

Moulton said he also ‘addressed some of the concerns that people raised about what would happen next.’

‘I think that we… either pass the baton to the vice president or have some sort of makeup primary,’ Moulton said when asked to elaborate. ‘It’ll show the American public that we’re energetic. We’re willing to change. We’re listening and responding to the people’s concerns. And we’re willing to have a serious debate within our party about the path forward, something that Republicans are obviously unwilling to do.’

When asked how his comments were taken, he said, ‘I will tell you that everybody who spoke on either side of this issue was received respectfully.’

‘People were respectful, nobody booed or cheered, it was a serious conversation that I appreciate we’re able to have in a closed-door meeting,’ Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., said when asked about disagreements.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, the first House Democrat to come out against Biden, said he also spoke up in the meeting. He told reporters, ‘I’ve had a tremendous outpouring of support in my district for the position I’ve taken. So many people saying, ‘Thank you for voicing this.’’

Other lawmakers were less willing to talk. Rep. Earl Blumenaur, D-Ore., told reporters, ‘I don’t do this in the media. It’s not helpful.’

At least six more House Democrats either declined to comment or simply did not respond when approached after the meeting by Fox News Digital.

Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, who has expressed concerns about Biden, told reporters the president has ‘got a lot of work’ to convince people he’s fit for candidacy.

All the lawmakers who Fox News Digital heard from said there was no consensus communicated by House Democratic leaders on how to move forward.

‘It was not about consensus… it was listening to discussions,’ said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., who is emphatically behind Biden.

He told Fox News Digital he was not frustrated at those who spoke out against Biden, explaining, ‘I wanted to hear them.’

Pettersen told reporters, ‘I think that the path moving forward, you know, we’re still having discussions. But if Joe Biden doesn’t step aside, people will be united in support of the president.’

‘I think we just had a lot of, wide variety of perspectives and different pieces to highlight. There wasn’t one concise message,’ she said.

Similarly, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said on Monday morning that he would support Biden if he was ultimately declared the nominee in August.

Biden, for his part, has said multiple times that he will not step aside and that he is the best person to take on former President Trump.

But his disastrous debate performance late last month on CNN has brought concerns about his age and mental acuity to the forefront.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., said the matter should be solved ‘sooner than later.’

When asked about the timeline, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., pointed out that Congress only returned to session on Monday evening.

‘Obviously, everything has to be wrapped up [by August],’ he said.

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The State Department is disputing a report from the Wall Street Journal claiming President Biden skipped out on a meeting with German high officials to catch some sleep.

The WSJ reported Monday that Germany had arranged a meeting between Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the Schloss Elmau resort in Bavaria following the June 2022 G-7 summit.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is alleged to have arrived without Biden to that early evening lounge meeting and announced that the president would not be attending because he had to go to bed, according to two sources speaking to the WSJ.

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment on the alleged incident.

‘That is absolutely not accurate,’ State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. ‘Secretary Blinken never said that or anything like it.’

The State Department gave an identical statement to the WSJ in the original report.

A source familiar with the 2022 meeting described the lounge gathering as informal and said Biden was never expected to attend.

Blinken has defended Biden in the weeks following his disastrous performance against former President Trump at the first presidential debate.

Speaking at a Brookings Institute event on July 1, Blinken claimed worldwide observers would not be dissuaded from supporting Biden due to his confused demeanor during the debate.

‘They’ve seen a president who’s reinvested America, reinvested America in the world, reinvested in these alliances, in these partnerships in ways that they seek and want,’ Blinken said.

He added that ‘confidence in American leadership has gone up dramatically’ over the course of Biden’s term in the Oval Office.

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Former President Trump’s week and a half of keeping a relatively more restrained profile following his debate with President Biden appears to be coming to an end.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is expected at a rally Tuesday evening near Miami, Florida, to take aim at Biden’s extremely uneven debate performance. 

And the Trump campaign says the former president will ‘lay out an indictment’ on what he claims is an attempt by the Biden campaign, the Democratic Party, and the mainstream media to cover up what he argues is the 81-year-old president’s cognitive decline.

A campaign aide, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely, said Trump will ‘press the case that Biden and the Democrats, with the collusion of mainstream media, have perpetrated a fraud and cover-up on the nation by claiming that Biden is fit to serve.’

Biden allies and other Democrats often point to the scores of times the former president – during his tenure in the White House and in the ensuing years – has slurred or confused his own words, which has raised concerns about Trump’s mental acuity.

‘Donald Trump must be confused. The only candidate who has been indicted, charged, impeached, and criminally convicted is Donald Trump,’ Biden campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika told Fox News in a statement, as she pointed to his 34 felony convictions in his criminal trial in New York City.

The debate was a major setback for Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in the nation’s history. His halting delivery and stumbling answers at the showdown in Atlanta sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and a rising tide of public and private calls from within his own party for him to step aside as its 2024 standard-bearer.

Over the past week, six House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to end his re-election bid. And on Sunday, Fox News and other news organizations reported that four House Democrats who hold top positions on key committees said on a private conference call that the president needed to step aside.

But the president and his campaign have strongly pushed back against the calls to step aside.

Biden, in a letter sent to congressional Democrats on Monday as they returned from the July 4th holiday recess, reiterated that he’s ‘firmly committed to staying in this race’ and argued that ‘the question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it is time for it to end. We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump.’

‘Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us,’ the president added. ‘It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.’

Over the past week, Trump has kept an uncharacteristically low profile, as his rival for the White House has worked to shore up his campaign.

A source in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News a week ago, ‘How much do we need to do while they are busy committing suicide?’ when asked about the campaign’s small footprint in the days after the debate.

But Trump is starting to turn up the volume.

Trump called into Fox News’ ‘Hannity’ on Monday night for his first TV interview since the debate.

The former president told host Sean Hannity that Biden ‘may very well stay in’ the 2024 presidential race, but said he is prepared if the Democratic incumbent withdraws.

‘He’s got an ego and he doesn’t want to quit,’ Trump claimed. And If Biden does withdraw, Trump said he would expect to face off against Vice President Kamala Harris.

‘I don’t think he wants to get out,’ Trump told Hannity. ‘But, if he does get out, it will be her.’

As Trump heads back out onto the campaign trail – in Florida on Tuesday and in battleground Pennsylvania on Saturday ahead of the Republican convention – a top allied group is also getting into the game.

A super PAC funded in large part by Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson is set to spend $61 million on TV and digital ads attacking Biden, a source with knowledge confirmed to Fox News.

The commercials from the Preserve America super PAC will begin airing later this month, and are timed to coincide with the start of the Summer Olympics, which is expected to draw massive ratings. The ads will run through Labor Day in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the three key battleground states known as the Democrats’ blue wall.

The commercials will spotlight the issues of immigration, national security and the economy.

‘Joe Biden and his hard-left allies have raised the cost of living, let terrorists cross our border, and crushed our veterans,’ veteran Republican consultant Dave Carney, a senior adviser for Preserve America, told Fox News. 

‘We’re going to put a boot on their necks so he can’t continue ruining our country over the next four years,’ Carney said.

The Preserve America ad blitz was first reported by Politico.

Fox News’ Bryan Llenas contributed to this report

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