WASHED AWAY: Twenty-five girls are missing from a summer camp and 24 people are already confirmed dead in massive flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas. An unknown number of people also are missing.

  Between 10 and 15 inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. An enormous search and rescue effort is under way, not only for the girls but for area residents. Power lines are down, roads are flooded, and cellphone service is spotty.

  The missing girls had been at the 100-year-old Christian Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River near Hunt, in Kerr County, about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. Floods in the same part of Texas swept away and killed 10 teenagers riding in a bus back in 1987.

  Texas officials claimed that some National Weather Service alerts had underestimated the risks. The most urgent alerts were issued overnight, in the early hours yesterday.

KEEPING IT SHORT TODAY:

— President Trump yesterday signed into law his “Big, Beautiful” tax, spending and policy bill that will change life for millions of Americans … for better and worse … and increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion.

  As Trump signed the bill at the White House he was surround by a gaggle of white men and three women, also white. Close to 12 million people are expected to lose all or part of their healthcare coverage but Trump called it, “The largest spending cut, and yet, you won’t even notice it.”

— The President says a ceasefire deal is close after Israeli strikes killed 138 Palestinians in Gaza. The death toll in the war is creeping toward 60,000.

— The Supreme Court said it will hear a case about which high school sports teams transgender students can join. 

— The Georgia chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a lawsuit this against the state park with the largest Confederate monument in the country, claiming officials broke state law by planning an exhibit on slavery, segregation, and white supremacy.

  The park is home to the giant Stone Mountain carving of depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert E. Lee and, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on horseback. It’s a monument to the notion of “The Lost Cause,” that the civil war was about the nobility of defending states’ rights rather than preserving slavery.

BELOW THE FOLD:  After a year in the sidelines because he endorsed vegetarian hotdogs, 41-year-old Joey Chestnut returned yesterday to the Nathan’s Famous 4^th of July hotdog eating contest to win The Mustard Belt by cramming down 70 ½ dogs in 10 minutes. It was his 17^th win, although his record was 76 in 2021.

  Chestnut said he’s going to keep competing, but he’s beginning to feel his age.

-30-