Reuters
LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. military will temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles until more National Guard troops can arrive, marking another escalation in President Donald Trump's response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies.
The U.S. Northern Command said a battalion would be sent to help protect federal property and personnel until more National Guard troops could reach the scene. For now, the Trump administration was not invoking the
Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity.
He supported a suggestion by his border czar that California Governor Gavin Newsom be arrested, after the Democrat said California was suing to block deployment of the National Guard.
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BBC UK
More than three-quarters of pensioners will receive the winter fuel payment this year after Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed a major policy U-turn.
Nine million pensioners in England and Wales with an annual income of £35,000 or less will now be eligible.
The payment, worth up to £300 to help with energy bills during the coldest months, was paid only to those on pension credit last year.
The policy was widely blamed for Labour's poor local election results. Reeves said the government had "listened to people's concerns", but Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called the change a "humiliating U-turn".
BBC
Best-selling author Frederick Forsyth, known for thriller novels including The Day Of The Jackal, has died at the age of 86, his agent has said.
"We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Jonathan Lloyd said in a statement.
Forsyth published more than 25 books, also including The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, and sold 75 million books around the world, he said.
His publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said: "Still read by millions across the world, Freddie's thrillers define the genre and are still the benchmark to which contemporary writers aspire. He leaves behind a peerless legacy which will continue to excite and entertain for years to come."
Al Jazeera
As the war-ravaged nation continues its brave run at World Cup football qualification against Oman in its final group match on Tuesday, on the ground in Gaza, its people will need a decade to repair their decimated sporting life.
Khan Younis, Gaza – In the ruins of his home in Khan Younis, 75-year-old Shaker Safi gently thumbs through fading photographs of his son Mohammed’s sporting career.
Medals, trophies, team huddles, and group photos of young athletes coached by Mohammed now serve as a haunting memorial to a dream destroyed by war.
On November 15, 2023, Mohammed Safi – a football coach and physical education teacher – was killed in an Israeli air strike.
He had spent years building a legacy of hope through sport, training at schools and community clubs, and transforming underdog teams into local champions.
Al Jazeera
Canada will meet NATO’s defence spending threshold of 2 percent this year as it shifts spending away from the United States and strengthens its relationship with the European Union, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney made the announcement on Monday, warning that in a “darker” world, Canada must reduce its security dependence on the US. In a speech at the University of Toronto, he said the country would hit the target five years earlier than anticipated.
Canada has been realigning its defence partnerships to better align with the EU, which marks a significant break from Ottawa’s longstanding reliance on the US. The country plans to buy more defence equipment, including fighter planes, from Europe.
NPR
The Department of Health and Human Services is removing all 17 members of a key advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the move on Monday afternoon in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal. He also announced plans to put new committee members in place.
The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices plays a key role in setting national vaccine policy, including the schedule of routine vaccines for children and adults. The gutting of the current committee removes an important check on changes in the administration's approach to vaccine policy.
Deutsche Welle
The world's undersea cable network spans roughly 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles) and carries over 95% of intercontinental internet traffic, yet it remains vulnerable to accidental damage, such as ship anchors, and deliberate disruption.
Recent incidents in the Baltic and Red Sea have underscored the cables' fragility. Policymakers are now staging international initiatives to safeguard the system.
"We need to work together to defend the entire network," Singaporean Minister of Defense Chan Chun Sing said at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier security forum, earlier this month.
"There's no point trying to defend the integrity and security of a submarine cable by looking at a point. We need both ends to be secure," he added.
The Guardian, International
A boat seized by Israel’s military as it tried to break the blockade on Gaza was towed into an Israeli port after sunset on Monday, with the crew of activists including Greta Thunberg expected to be held there in advance of deportation hearings.
The Madleen was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory.
Thunberg and the other 11 members of the Madleen crew, including the French MEP Rima Hassan and the Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad, have been out of contact since Israeli forces took control of the boat in the early hours of Monday morning.
The Guardian, US
Sly Stone, the American musician who lit up generations of dancefloors with his gloriously funky and often socially conscious songwriting, has died aged 82.
“After a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues, Sly passed away peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his closest friend and his extended family,” a family statement reads. “While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come.”
With his group Sly and the Family Stone, Stone tied together soul, psychedelic rock and gospel into fervent, uplifting songs, and became one of the key progenitors of the 1970s funk sound alongside James Brown and others.
The Guardian, Canada
Six babies with unvaccinated mothers have been born with congenital measles in the Canadian province of Ontario since the start of the largest outbreak of the disease in the western hemisphere late last year.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Kieran Moore, said the infants, who were infected with measles in the womb, had all recovered. He said the infections could have been prevented through routine vaccination.
Congenital measles, which refers to cases in which a child is born already infected with the highly contagious disease, can produce inflammation of the brain and in some cases, death.
The Guardian, Tech
Apple researchers have found “fundamental limitations” in cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, in a paper raising doubts about the technology industry’s race to develop ever more powerful systems.
Apple said in a paper published at the weekend that large reasoning models (LRMs) – an advanced form of AI – faced a “complete accuracy collapse” when presented with highly complex problems.
It found that standard AI models outperformed LRMs in low-complexity tasks, while both types of model suffered “complete collapse” with high-complexity tasks. Large reasoning models attempt to solve complex queries by generating detailed thinking processes that break down the problem into smaller steps.
NBC News
WASHINGTON — Bradley Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, lost his bid for president of the D.C. Bar, receiving 3,490 votes compared with opponent Diane Seltzer’s 34,982.
Seltzer, an employment lawyer who ran a campaign focused on supporting members of the organization at a time of “governmental chaos,” said after the results were announced Monday that she credited the D.C. Bar's members with showing up and saying what kind of leader they wanted.
“We've got to make sure that we hang on to the rule of law and that we can practice law safely,” Seltzer told NBC News. “That we can represent who we want without worrying about retaliation, and that judges can issue fair and impartial rulings without worrying about being intimidated or retaliated against.”
NPR
President Trump has been promising his tariffs will help make America more prosperous.
There's already evidence that tariffs are helping the government's bottom line. The federal government collected $68.9 billion in tariffs and excise taxes during the first five months of the year, according to Treasury Department data collected by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
That's a 78% increase from the same period a year ago. Much of the additional revenue came in April and May, after Trump imposed tariffs of at least 10% on nearly everything the U.S. buys from other countries.
But whether the tariffs are making Americans more prosperous is another question. The tariff windfall isn't coming out of thin air. Nor is it being paid by foreign governments, as Trump often argues.
NY Times Gift Article
Over the past year, the Trump family has zoomed around the world signing one new real estate development after another, often involving foreign governments, raising a litany of ethical concerns.
But only one of those has led to a publicly announced criminal investigation of local officials. And the inquiry came after a plucky group of cultural preservationists in Serbia stood up to their own government and, by extension, the close relatives of the powerful American president.
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has a deal with the Serbian government to build a half-billion-dollar hotel and apartment complex in the center of the capital, Belgrade. The project also involves the Trump Organization, run by the president’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., as the luxury hotel will bear the Trump brand.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, eeff, annetteboardman, FarWestGirl, doomandgloom, Besame, and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to), Rise above the swamp, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.