Another Moderate Republican Opts Out

For the likes of Don Bacon, quitting Congress has become a familiar endgame.

The Atlantic

Sen. Josh Hawley says he’ll make sure Medicaid cuts in Trump bill he voted for ‘never take effect’

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks with NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Julie Tsirkin after he voted to pass President Trump’s tax and spending plan despite opposing its sweeping cuts to Medicaid.

ICE memo outlines plan to deport migrants to countries where they are not citizens

The dramatic shift in policy could result in thousands of people being sent to places where they lack family ties or even a common language.

The Washington Post

Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns

Mixed among the detainees accused and convicted of crimes are more than 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States. The data is based on a list of more than 700 people who are either being held under tents and in chain link cells at Florida’s pop-up detention center in the Everglades or appear slated for transfer there.

Miami Herald

ICE raids are leaving some L.A. cats and dogs homeless

“Pets are like the collateral damage to the current political climate,” said Jennifer Naitaki, vice president of programs and strategic initiatives at the Michelson Found Animals Foundation.

Los Angeles Times

Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning

All the pieces are being reported on, one way or another, but it’s as if someone was just run over by – well let’s just say a giant armored vehicle driven by faceless goons in camouflage dress-up and body armor, since there’s a lot of goons and vehicles like that out there – but the journalists reported it all in close-up, so we got a report one day that a spleen burst and another that lots of ribs were shattered. It’s when you add up all the individual injuries that you see the victim is in critical condition. And when you look around that you see the armored vehicle is revving up for another pass. And another.

Meditations in an Emergency

Camp Mystic asked to remove buildings from government flood maps despite risk

The federal government allowed Camp Mystic, the all-girls summer camp along the Guadalupe River, to remove multiple buildings from government flood maps, even though private data suggests the flood threat remained, and was even worse than the government reported, according to documents and data NPR has reviewed.

NPR

Culture Club: The Legacy of Lighthouse Libraries: A Beacon of Solace and Knowledge

Seeing that lighthouse keepers “seized on any reading matter that came in their way,” they began informally passing around books and magazines. Then in 1876, the Lighthouse Board introduced a portable wooden library box into its roster of supplies.

Door County Pulse

Trump faces a revolt from his MAGA base over the Epstein files

The Epstein files — and calls for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired — dominated a conservative conference in Tampa this weekend.

NBC News

Amid Epstein backlash, Bondi ends case against MAGA-backed Utah doctor

The attorney general ordered prosecutors to dismiss charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of faking vaccine cards and injecting saline into patients who wanted to dodge vaccine mandates.

The Washington Post

Why Evangelicals Turned Their Back on PEPFAR

A religious movement that has so often taken public stands has been unusually quiet since Trump gutted the program to combat AIDS in Africa.

The Atlantic

Why the Trump regime shattered the Constitution to crush a 29-year-old Maryland laborer

Trump’s Justice Department is defying judges and fabricating charges to deny freedom to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Here’s why.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

E. Jean Carroll Speaks—and She’s Throwing Darts All Across Trumpworld

Joe Tacopina was “disgusting.” Alina Habba, “deliciously arrogant.” Plus, what she’ll do with all that money—if Trump ever pays it.

The New Republic

Copper now costs way more in the U.S. than elsewhere. This could hit its economy hard

The cost of copper for U.S. buyers has rocketed after President Donald Trump said he would impose a 50% tariff on imports of the metal.

It means that already elevated prices are now even higher in the U.S. than elsewhere — and analystswarned of a hit to businesses and the wider U.S. economy as a result. 

CNBC

When the Threat Is Inside the White House

What CIA insiders make of the MAGA moles and toadies now in charge of U.S. national security.

Foreign Policy

UN experts alarmed by resumption of US deportations to third countries, warn authorities to assess risks of torture

“International law is clear that no one shall be sent anywhere where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to serious human rights violations such as torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life,” the experts said. “That assessment must be individual as well as country-specific.”

United Nations Human Council

The Great Cousin Decline

Families are shrinking. But the weirdest family role is a vital one.

The Atlantic

ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court

A grandmother planning to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became herself the story on Tuesday, after video of her arrest began circulating online.

The 71-year-old woman, U.S. citizen Barbara Stone, was accused of pushing an ICE agent and was placed in custody for several hours. Stone denied the allegation to NBC 7 on Wednesday.

NBC News

Trump’s FTC Chairman Is Becoming MAGA’s Answer to Lina Khan

Andrew Ferguson is maintaining the agency’s focus on tech giants and putting new muscle behind longstanding conservative complaints.

Bloomberg

The biggest gender-affirming care center for trans kids in the US is closing, prompting protests

“Trans kids are done being quiet. Trans kids are done being polite, and trans kids are done begging for the bare minimum, begging for the chance to grow up, to have a future, to be loved by others when sometimes we can’t even love ourselves,” Pitchenik said, prompting cheers from dozens of protesters during a recent demonstration.

AP News

European right-wing leaders in Vienna back Israel, accuse Macron of going soft on Iran

Austria hosts a gathering of Europe’s nationalist right as speakers accuse France’s president of appeasing Tehran while pledging full backing for Israel.

Jerusalem Post

Heat claims more than 175,000 lives annually in Europe, latest data shows

Across Europe, more than 50 countries “are paying the ultimate price”, said WHO Regional Director Dr. Hans Kluge, only days since Earth recorded its warmest average temperature yet, at 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.89 Fahrenheit), and as exhausting summer heatwaves hit across the northern hemisphere.

Dr. Kluge said that the three warmest years on record in Europe have all happened since 2020 and that the 10 hottest years have all been charted since 2007.

United Nations Health Council

The tortured Ukrainian veteran turning shrapnel into a war museum

At the site of a roadside cafe, a retired army commander has been meticulously charting the trail of death left by Russia’s war

The Telegraph

In London, theatergoers reenact storming of the U.S. Capitol

In the interactive game “Fight for America,” audience members on Team Blue and Team Red reenact the Jan. 6 riot, an exercise intended to force reflection on mob mentality.

The Washington Post

Russia’s foreign secretary praises North Korea’s troops, blames U.S. for tensions in Northeast Asia

“The Russian side expressed its sincere gratitude for Pyongyang’s consistent support in principle of the Russian special military operation, and the participation of fighters from the Korean People’s Army in ousting Ukrainian nationalists and foreign mercenaries from [Russia’s] Kursk Region,” Russian news agency TASS reported Mr. Lavrov as saying.

Mr. Lavrov also blamed the U.S. for increasing tensions in Northeast Asia — a likely reference to last week’s Japanese-South Korean-U.S. aerial drills in which jet fighters from the Asian democracies were drilling with U.S. B-52 strategic bombers.

The Washington Times

Iran president was reportedly injured in Israeli strikes

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was reportedly slightly injured during one of Israel’s attacks on Iran last month.

Iran’s state Fars news agency, close to the revolutionary guard, says that on 16 June, six bombs targeted both access and entry points of a secret underground facility in Tehran where Pezeshkian was attending an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council.

BBC

Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari dies at age 82

Former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military general who campaigned on rooting out government corruption, has died at age 82, the presidential press office said in a statement on Sunday.

CNN

Fears of summer holidays measles surge as child dies amid falling vaccinations

Doctors are bracing for a further increase in UK cases caused by holidaymakers returning from countries such as France, Italy and Spain, which are also suffering outbreaks

The Paper

Ukraine must get ready for future in which there is no ceasefire with Russia

While Donald Trump – and other western leaders – are taking their time to catch up with reality, it is obvious that Vladimir Putin has no apparent desire to halt the war in Ukraine. A realistic future military and diplomatic strategy for Kyiv has to accept that fact – and formulate a new approach.

The Guardian