Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navas is away. On the news hour tonight, IRS

whistleblowers testify before Congress, claiming the Justice Department slow-walked an investigation

into Hunter Biden. New reporting highlights former President Donald Trump's plans to expand

executive power and limit judicial independence if reelected. And Judy Woodruff hears from

a panel of Iowa voters about the role of politics in their lives and their hopes for overcoming

divisions.

Bluer cities and redder sort of rural areas and so the less people talk to each other,

the less they have a really good frame of reference for how somebody might actually think.

Welcome to the news hour. Tens of millions of Americans have spent another day under heat

watches, warnings or advisories in this long hot summer of 2023. The low temperature in Phoenix

early today was 97, a record that followed 19 straight days with highs of 110 degrees,

also a record. Bill Boards around the city displayed the brutally high temperatures while

Arizonans and their dogs adjusted their schedules to escape the dangerous conditions.

We stay hydrated. They drink a lot of water and then we're inside during the day and when the

sun goes down, we're out walking and going to the park. So I guess we have to be downpires

in this kind of weather. Searing heat overseas plagued firefighters in Greece as they battled

wildfires near Athens for a third day and streets in Sardinia, Italy were deserted as temperatures

neared 108 degrees. A federal judge in New York has upheld a jury award of five million dollars

against former President Trump. The jury found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996

and defamed her in his denial. Today the judge ruled the award was reasonable. He said that it

quote did not deviate materially from reasonable compensation so as to make it excessive.

A separate federal judge refused today to take over a state court case involving Mr. Trump's

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