WAYWARD SON: A federal judge asking questions in Delaware yesterday put a hold on the expected guilty plea by President Biden’s son, Hunter, on charges of tax evasion and illegal possession of guns. It’s a development that’s sure to feed the Republican suspicion that something is rotten in the Biden household and the Justice Department.

  Hunter Biden was expected to plead to a misdemeanor for failure to timely pay up to $1.5 million in federal taxes.

  The judge demanded more information from both sides. Prosecutors and defense lawyers disagreed on whether the 53-year-old Biden could still be charged with failing to register as a foreign agent for lucrative deals in countries such as China and Ukraine that some people believe also involved his father.

 Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who twice voted against impeaching President Donald Trump, is now suggesting he might get behind an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

  Republicans have been digging for links between the President and his troubled son. McCarthy has been under intense pressure from his party’s far right wingers like Marjorie Taylor Greene to go after the elder Biden. “We’ve only followed where the information has taken us,” McCarthy told Fox News host Sean Hannity Monday night. “This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed.”

  McCarthy has previously resisted impeachment of Biden, which would be a sure loser in the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

THE WAR ROOM: The main thrust of Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russian occupiers has begun, with thousands of troops thrown into the fray, Pentagon officials told reporters.

  It was already evident that something big was happening with artillery duels flaring along the southern line.

  Russia claims to have repelled a “massive” new attack by Ukrainian forces south of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. The area south of Orikhiv is considered key to expelling the Russian forces from the south and east of the country. 

  The chief spokesman for Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had deployed three battalions reinforced with tanks. It’s hard to know what’s really happening. Ukraine doesn’t announce its moves and Russia is a font of lies. The counter offensive that Ukraine launched last month has failed so far to make any dramatic breakthroughs.

  But an official appointed by Moscow in southern Ukraine said the new assault involves Ukrainian troops trained abroad and equipped with about 100 armored vehicles, including German-made Leopard tanks and American Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

ECON 101: The Federal reserve yesterday raised the prime interest rate to 5 ¼ to 5 ½ percent, the highest rate since 2001 in a continuing effort to put the squeeze on inflation.

  What that means is a little more income on your useless bank savings account, but 30 year mortgages were 7 percent yesterday and likely to rise.

ORDER FROM THE COURT: Israel’s Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments in September about whether to accept or reject Parliament’s new law curtailing the court’s power. It’s a monumental battle for the little country and its political character.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s narrow majority on Monday passed a law that stops the court from overruling government decisions on the legal basis of “reasonableness.” The government says the term was never defined in law and grants too much subjective power to unelected judges. Israel never adopted its proposed constitution, so the court’s powers are not cast in concrete.

  The passage of Netanyahu’s bill set off widespread demonstrations in the country by Israelis who fear Netanyahu is taking the Israel down the road of nationalism and religious conservatism.

THE OBIT PAGE: Irish Pop singer Sinead O’Connor, who performed with anger, angst, and poetry, has died at age 56. No cause was given.

  O’Connor broke out in 1990 with the single “Nothing Compares 2 U,” then caused an uproar a few years later by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live.

  Internationally recognized with her shaved head, O’Connor released 10 studio albums and sold millions of copies.

  She spoke about having been abused as a child and when devastated when her 17-year-old son committed suicide last year.

  O’Connor wasn’t shy about her opinions. In 1990, she threatened to cancel a performance in New Jersey if The Star-Spangled Banner was played ahead of her appearance. She withdrew from an appearance on Saturday Night Live in protest of the scheduled host, Andrew Dice Clay, who told dirty jokes about women.

  Tearing up the photo of the Pope just about ended her career. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” she once told The NY Times. “But it was very traumatizing. It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.”

THE SPIN RACK: Six years after allegations against him surfaced on both sides of the Atlantic, American actor Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of sexual assault in a British courtroom. When he heard the verdict, the 64-year-old cried. Spacey, who’s gay, doesn’t deny having sex with men, but said the encounters with the men who pressed charges were consensual. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze mid-sentence yesterday and was unable to speak for 23 seconds during his weekly press availability. The 81-year-old is also reported to have been falling recently. — American Lindsey Horan scored a header to tie the Netherlands 1-1 in the Women’s World Cup to keep the US in play. Only in soccer do athletes wildly celebrate a tie.

BELOW THE FOLD: Former President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social website that he will “have fun” next year on the witness stand in federal court at “the trial of the century” if he is indicted on charges of attempting to overthrow the 2020 election.

  “We’ll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the Presidential Election wasn’t Rigged and Stollen,” Trump wrote, misspelling one of his favorite words, “stolen.” 

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