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The RNC Koch-blocks; Qataris must jump through hoops to go on Hajj.

Republicans have begun to sever ties with the Koch brothers

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Why can’t Qataris go on Hajj?

The governor of Mecca claims that the Qatari government is preventing its citizens from taking the annual pilgrimage, known as Hajj, to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Of the 558,000 pilgrims who arrived by August 1, Prince Khalid al-Faisal said none of them were from Qatar. [Asharq Al-Awsat]

Qatar has denied these claims. QNA, the Qatari state-run news agency, reported that the government says there are three issues at stake: Qataris face many obstacles while trying to complete the pilgrimage, the Saudi Arabian border is closed to Qatari citizens, and anti-Qatari government rhetoric in the media is growing in frequency and popularity. [QNA]

The Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, however, said that Qataris are more than welcome to go on Hajj. They just need to register online and travel through the Jeddah airport to access Mecca. But Doha, the capital of Qatar, has allegedly blocked Qatarian access to the website where citizens can register. [Arab News]

Qatari residents first encountered this problem in 2017, when Saudi Arabia severed ties with Qatar and issued an air, land, and sea blockade on the country because it felt Qatar supports “terrorism.” Qataris were forced to travel through different countries to access Mecca, though many say they were still turned away. [Al Jazeera]

Miscellaneous

The National Enquirer is finally starting to distance itself from President Donald Trump. [Daily Beast / Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng, and Dean Sterling Jones]

100 goats are on the loose in Boise, Idaho, and they are “eating everything in sight.” [Twitter / Joe Parris]

A Canadian sunflower farm was forced to close its gates to visitors after hordes of people causing destruction (to the sunflowers and each other’s cars) swarmed the property to get that perfect Instagram shot. Now the proprietor, who “used to love these flowers,” “can’t stand ‘em.” [The Verge / Patricia Hernandez]

A “rogue” planet is floating around just outside of our solar system without an orbiting attachment to any parent star. And it’s a dozen times the size of Jupiter. [Metro / Jeff Parsons]

Verbatim

“Online trolls and harassers want us, the Times, and other newsrooms to waste their time by debating their malicious agenda. They … want to disrupt us and harm individual reporters. The strategy is to divide and conquer … This is not a good-faith conversation; it’s intimidation.” [Editors from The Verge in defense of writer Sarah Jeong]

Watch this: Why the street gang MS-13 is an American problem

We need to separate fact from fiction about MS-13. [YouTube / Ranjani Chakraborty and Mallory Brangan]

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