Good morning.
About 700 US marines were en route to Los Angeles on Tuesday after Donald Trump mobilized them the day before in response to protests over immigration raids. The president also doubled the number of national guard members to 4,000, in an extraordinary mobilization of troops against US residents that California leaders have called “authoritarian”.
The Pentagon mobilized the 700 active-duty marines after tensions between the federal government and the nation’s second-largest city dramatically escalated over the weekend, with residents taking to the streets to demonstrate against a series of brutal crackdowns on immigrant communities. The raids have affected garment district works, day laborers and restaurants. Federal agents also arrested the president of a major California union who was serving as a community observer during the raids.
Despite facing teargas and other munitions over the weekend, protesters continued to rally on Monday, and families of detained immigrants pleaded for their loved ones to be released.
How is California responding? The state has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing the US president of “unlawfully” federalizing the state’s national guard to quell a domestic protest.
Hegseth aide upended Pentagon leak inquiry with false wiretap claims
Days before Pete Hegseth fired three top aides last month over a Pentagon leak investigation into the disclosure of classified materials, according to four people familiar with the episode, a recently hired senior adviser said he could help with the inquiry.
The adviser, Justin Fulcher, suggested to Hegseth’s then chief of staff, and Hegseth’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, that he knew of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) that had identified the leakers.
Fulcher offered to share the supposed evidence as long as he could help run the investigation, three of the people said. But when he eventually sat down with officials, it became clear he had no evidence of a wiretap, and the Pentagon had been duped.
The extraordinary episode adds to the growing portrait of dysfunction inside Hegseth’s front office.
What happened next? The development was not communicated to the White House – so several Trump advisers who were told of the NSA wiretap claim believed that was part of the “smoking gun” evidence against the three aides fired by Hegseth, until they developed their own doubts.
Israel says Greta Thunberg is leaving country on flight to France
The Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was leaving Tel Aviv on a flight to France after having been detained earlier with other activists on a Gaza-bound aid boat, Israel said today.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with two photos of the activist on board a plane.
The group of activists departed Italy on 1 Juneonboard the Madleen carrying a symbolic amount of food and supplies for Gaza, whose population is at risk of famine. Israeli forces intercepted the boat in international waters yesterday and towed it to the port of Ashdod.
What about the other activists? “The passengers of the ‘Selfie Yacht’ arrived at Ben Gurion airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries,” the Israeli foreign ministry said. “Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority.”
In other news …
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is getting rid of all 17 members on a key panel of vaccine experts and will replace them, he said yesterday.
A former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs told jurors in his sex-trafficking and racketeering trial that she repeatedly told the music mogul she didn’t want to have sex with other men.
Authorities said a Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving at a Detroit airport for the alleged smuggling of biological material, the second such case in two days.
Stat of the day: Trump announces $1,000 government-funded accounts for American babies
Donald Trump unveiled a federal program yesterday providing $1,000 government-funded investment accounts for American babies, getting backing from top business leaders who said they plan to contribute billions more to an initiative tied to “the big beautiful bill”.
Don’t miss this: Metaverse misogyny – is Mark Zuckerberg’s dreamworld a no-go area for women?
Graphic sexual content, bullying, abuse and threats of violence are rife on Meta-owned products. Now Meta is pumping billions of dollars a year into building its metaverse, a virtual world for education, business, shopping and live events. But if Meta has utterly failed to keep women and girls safe in its existing online spaces, why should we trust it with the future?
Climate check: Dead elephants and feral sea lions – how poisonous algal blooms harm the planet
The unexplained deaths of hundreds of elephants near watering holes across the Okavango delta in May 2020 alarmed conservationists. Nearly five years later, scientists finally published a paper indicating what they believe to be the reason behind the deaths: toxic water caused by an algal bloom.
Or this: New report explores why people do not have the number of children they want
Millions of people are prevented from having the number of children they want by a toxic mix of economic barriers and sexism, a UN report has warned. While right-wing governments, including the US and Hungary, are increasingly blaming falling fertility rates on a rejection of parenthood, the report found most people wanted children.
Last thing: Bar etiquette – which generation has the worst behavior?
Gen Z are making headlines for their hesitancy to use bar tabs – instead preferring to close out and pay after every single drink, no matter how many rounds they order. But do younger people have a monopoly on poor bar etiquette? Alaina Demopoulos spoke to bartenders across the US about which generation behaves best.
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