Donald Trump

June 7 (UPI) — The Israel Defense Forces confirmed it struck military targets in western and central Iran on Monday in retaliation for a wave of airstrikes launched against the Jewish state by Tehran hours earlier.

“A short while ago, the Israeli Air Force struck military targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran. Details to follow,” the IDF said in a post on Telegram as a fragile cease-fire in the Iran War continued to unravel.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, meanwhile, confirmed the attack, according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency.

“The Zionist enemy has attacked targets on our country’s soil using air-launched ballistic missiles,” the IRGC said.

Official Iranian media also said residents in neighboring Iraq heard explosions in parts in the capital Baghdad while unidentified objects were seen over the Iraqi city and in Beirut.

The strikes against Iran came just hours after the Islamic regime lobbed missiles into northern Israel for the first time since the beginning of the cease-fire, which came into effect on April 8.

Tehran said those strikes were in response to Israeli bombings targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Iranian missiles, which the IDF said had been intercepted, were the first direct attack on Israel since the cease-fire.

The attacks follow an announcement on Sunday that Israel had launched strikes at alleged Hezbollah targets in Beirut — attacks which it has continued throughout the cease-fire — and some of which have been in suburban neighborhoods.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who reportedly has been briefed on Iran’s actions, told Iran “that’s enough, get back to the table” for peace negotiations, Fox News reported.

“The Israeli army must stop its attacks on southern Lebanon and the suburbs, and if it expands its attacks to that region or responds to Iran’s action, it will face more devastating and regrettable blows,” General Ali Abdollahi, head of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya command, said in a statement.

Trump has reportedly also told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold back after the Iranian strikes, which Netanyahu agreed to on the condition that Hezbollah — which is funded by the Iranian regime — not launch strikes into northern Israel from Lebanon.

The United States and Iran have been negotiating an end the war for more than a month, as a cease-fire has mostly held but the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, preventing the shipment of oil and other products from the Middle East.

Yariv Oppenheimer told Al Jazeera that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has incentives to escalate tensions with Iran and Hezbollah but is constrained by US President Donald Trump and US interests. He said Iran’s June 7 response was a warning, not a push for war, and doubts Trump would allow major Israeli retaliation.

Legal challenge claims US president did not seek proper approval for fighting event to be held on his 80th birthday.

A lawsuit is seeking to stop United States President Donald Trump from hosting an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) match at the White House.

The lawsuit, lodged on behalf of two Virginia residents, is the first known legal challenge to the mixed martial arts event, which is set to be hosted on June 14.

The event will take place on Trump’s 80th birthday. It is also pegged to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which the US will commemorate on July 4 of this year.

The legal challenge filed on Saturday maintained that Trump did not receive proper authorisation to host the fight.

It argued that the event violated US National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, that Congress did not consent to the construction of a towering arch overlooking the event space, and that no environmental review was conducted before the construction.

“This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, the White House dismissed the lawsuit as “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory”.

The White House maintained the UFC fight was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year”.

Crews have been erecting an octagon-shaped fighting cage on the South Lawn of the White House, with Trump saying the project will include a “5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House”.

Attendance at the fight will be invite-only and closely monitored. The Military Times news site reported earlier this week that 1,200 service members given tickets to the event must meet certain waist-to-height ratio standards.

Public viewing areas will also be set up at the nearby Ellipse.

Trump has long been closely involved with both professional wrestling and UFC, with his casinos and event spaces hosting past events.

He regularly appeared as a version of himself in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) events throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. His current secretary of education, Linda McMahon, is a co-founder of the WWE.

Trump has more recently embraced UFC, which is currently owned by the same company, TKO Group Holdings, as the WWE.

UFC president Dana White has been a close ally of Trump’s.

Political analysts have credited Trump’s embrace of the sport with reaching disaffected male voters in the US, particularly during his 2024 election campaign.

June 6 (UPI) — President Donald Trump pardoned former U.S. Rep. Stephen Buyer, R-Ind., who was convicted on four counts of securities fraud in 2023 after he left Congress.

Buyer had been convicted and sentenced to 22 months in prison after he was charged with trading stock based on two mergers he knew about based on work at his consulting firm, ABC News and The New York Times reported.

The two mergers he based trades on were T-Mobile’s deal to acquire Sprint and the professional services firm Guidehouse’s deal to buy its competitor Navigant.

In a proclamation released Thursday by the White House, President Donald Trump included a list of current and former members of members of Congress, including Sens. Roger Wicker and Lindsey Graham and Reps. Pet Sessions and Jack Bergman, among several others.

“Mr. Buyer’s career serving as a judge advocate general in the United States Army and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the State of Indiana was distinguished and highly productive,” Trump said.

Buyer was first elected to Congress in 1992, retired from the House in 2010 and then formed his consulting company.

The trades he made based, which were based on executives of the companies he was working for, netted him well over $330,000 in profit when he sold shares of the companies after the mergers were announced.

During his time in Congress, Buyer also was a House prosecutor during the impeaching of former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

For the sixth-straight day, thousands of protesters have rallied in the Albanian capital against a proposed luxury beach development linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Environmental groups accuse authorities of lacking transparency and allowing for the destruction of protected biodiversity on the country’s Adriatic Coast.

Republican Stephen Buyer was convicted and sentenced to 22 months in prison, though he has maintained his innocence.

United States President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office.

The pardon was dated Thursday and released by the White House late Friday night.

Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for trades made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000, representing the amount of the illegal gains, as well as pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.

The Supreme Court in May rejected Buyer’s appeal without comment or noted dissent.

In granting “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon” to Buyer, Trump cited the Republican’s work, both as a judge advocate general in the US Army and as a politician in the US House. Trump described his career as “distinguished and highly productive”.

Buyer said the pardon “corrects a politically motivated prosecution” and that it was “horrific to be imprisoned for a crime that I did not commit”. He maintains that he is innocent.

Trump used his Truth Social media platform on May 31 to share a pair of letters requesting a presidential pardon for Buyer, a lawyer and Gulf War veteran who left office in 2011.

He was a House prosecutor at Democratic President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial, and in 2016, he served on Trump’s transition team, focusing on veterans’ issues.

A letter signed by more than 40 former Republicans in Congress said Buyer was “targeted by the deep state” because of his involvement in Clinton’s trial.

“Like you, Mr President, Steve has been the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration,” they wrote in the April 2025 letter.

A second letter, from five current House Republicans, said pardoning Buyer would bring justice to his case. The June 2025 letter was signed by Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan and Pete Sessions of Texas.

Buyer, 67, was convicted in connection with insider trading involving the $26.5bn merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018, and illegal trades in the management consulting company Navigant when his client Guidehouse was set to acquire it in a deal publicly disclosed weeks later.

The US Constitution gives the president broad power to grant pardons for federal crimes.

A pardon does not erase a recipient’s criminal record but can be seen as an act of mercy or justice.

Department reports raise concerns about increased espionage activity amid US-Israeli war with Iran, ceasefire talks.

The Pentagon’s intelligence arm has raised the assessed threat level on Israeli spying from “high” to “critical” in recent weeks, according to US media.

NBC News first broke news of the change on Friday, with The New York Times issuing its own report the following day.

The news outlets cited anonymous sources as saying the switch came in light of concerns over increasingly aggressive tactics related to the US-Israeli war with Iran.

They said the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had raised the alert level amid fears that Israel is increasingly attempting to surveil top US officials. The aim is allegedly to understand internal White House deliberations about ending the war.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have publicly diverged in their approach to the war, which the US and Israel started on February 28.

Trump, on one hand, has repeatedly said he wants to bring the war to a close, amid mounting political pressure at home.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has called for war to resume, despite an April 8 ceasefire. The fighting has been mostly paused since the temporary truce was announced, but efforts to reach a lasting agreement have repeatedly stalled.

The New York Times reported that, while Israel has been known to spy on the US, the DIA cited an uptick in activities beginning in late 2024, as the administration of US President Joe Biden increased pressure on Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza.

That increase continued into 2025, as Trump returned to the presidency and began deliberating about how to approach Iran.

The newspaper added that other recent intelligence assessments have also documented evidence that there are Israeli efforts to monitor Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff as well as Elbridge Colby, a top policy official at the Pentagon, and his deputy Michael DiMino IV.

Witkoff had been the lead negotiator in nuclear talks that preceded the initial US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.

Both NBC News and The New York Times cited unnamed US officials in their reports. The US Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.

However, an unnamed spokesperson told both news organisations that the reports were “false”.

Still, the reported concerns are likely to raise questions over the close intelligence and military coordination between Israel and the US.

Washington has, for years, provided billions in military aid and weapons sales to Israel, including throughout the genocide in Gaza.

The US Congress is also currently debating a section of a new defence bill, which would integrate the two countries’ research and development for weaponry to an unprecedented degree.

While the US and its allies are known to regularly conduct intelligence operations on each other, officials told both NBC and The New York Times that Israel’s recent vigour was unique.

The New York Times reported that the increased DIA designation surpasses all current allies, as well as a handful of countries with more fraught relations.

Recent incidents included Israel’s military intelligence trying to plant listening devices at the DIA headquarters in 2021, according to the newspaper.

In 2025, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, was found to have tried to plant a similar device in a Secret Service vehicle, the report said.

June 6 (UPI) — Democrat Xavier Becerra is advancing to the November election in the California governor’s race, while Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer battle for the second spot.

California’s primary is nonpartisan, so the top two finishers advance, regardless of party.

If elected, Becerra, 68, would be California’s first Latino governor since 1875. The state’s population is about 41% Latino.

“The people of the great state of California, in the greatest nation on Earth, have spoken — loudly and proudly,” Becerra said in a statement. “We will not be bought. We will not be bullied. And we are never backing down.”

Becerra was the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary under President Joe Biden and is a former California attorney general.

No Republican has won statewide office since 2006. Hilton has also been endorsed by President Donald Trump, who is unpopular in the state. California Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t run for re-election because of term limits.

The vote count has taken several days because California has mail-in voting. It’s not unusual for California’s elections to take a long time to count. Trump-endorsed Hilton led early, but it’s likely that’s because Republicans voted early, while Democrats waited because they had many more contenders from which to choose, The New York Times reported.

Hilton, 56, is a British-born former Fox News host who once worked for Prime Minister David Cameron. Steyer, 68, is a New York-born billionaire philanthropist and climate activist who ran for president in 2020.

On Friday, the Department of Justice sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot counting in Los Angeles after Trump claimed that the count was being rigged by Democrats.

The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder said in a statement Friday: “Our office was notified late yesterday that the U.S. attorney’s office would send an assistant U.S. attorney to the Ballot Processing Center to observe ballot processing activities.”

“The individual arrived this morning, was provided an overview of the public observation program and participated in a walkthrough of the ballot processing operations,” spokesperson Mike Sanchez said in an email to CNN.

Sanchez noted that ballot processing is open to the public.

California law gives election officials 30 days to complete the counting and certification process, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement.

“Our commitment is immediate: in California, every ballot is counted properly and every ballot is accounted for,” Weber said.

US President Donald Trump hailed stronger-than-expected jobs growth before pivoting to Iran, saying negotiations with Tehran “seem to be going quite well”. Trump offered no further details on the talks as he arrived in Wisconsin for an agriculture event.

Trump seeks to shore up support among rural voters hard hit by tariffs, economic fallout of war with Iran.

United States President Donald Trump has sought to reassure farmers hard-hit by tariffs and the economic fallout of the US-Israeli war with Iran during a visit to Wisconsin.

The stop in Chippewa Falls on Friday for a farming roundtable comes months before the midterm elections in November. Trump was seeking to bolster support for Republican US Representative Derrick Van Orden, who has been targeted by Democrats hoping to take control of the chamber.

Van Orden has closely aligned with Trump and has long espoused the president as the best leader for rural Americans. Democrat challenger Rebecca Cook has proven a strong fundraiser and has led Van Orden in recent polls.

Democrats are considered favourites to take control of the US House of Representatives, currently controlled by Republicans, in the midterms.

“I love the place,” Trump said, referring to Wisconsin, “and hopefully you’re going to be voting Republican, because frankly, Republican is – I call it the sane way to go.”

Success for Democrats would allow the party to seriously restrict Trump’s agenda in the final two years of his term.

The Wisconsin visit was also more broadly aimed at shoring up support among farmers, who had largely backed the president in his 2024 election bid.

Farmers have been particularly hard-hit by Trump’s aggressive tariff policies, with many countries limiting imports of US products, notably soybeans, in response. The tariffs have also made importing items needed for daily operations more expensive.

The administration has sought to offset the fallout with temporary aid packages for farmers.

At the same time, fertiliser costs have surged since the US and Israel launched the war with Iran on February 28, with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz increasing prices of several key components, including urea.

An April survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation found that 70 percent of farmers in the US reported they cannot afford all of their fertiliser needs.

The average gas price of $4.04 per ⁠gallon of petrol this week was also $1.08 higher than a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.

Trump assured those gathered that the administration had “largely finished” the war “one way or the other”.

He vowed fertiliser and gas prices would come “way down”.

The visit comes as several polls have shown Trump’s overall approval rating hovering at all-time lows, about or under 40 percent.

His approval was lower on specific issues, with a Marquette Law School poll conducted from May 20-26 finding just 19 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of gas prices. Only 22 percent approved of his handling of inflation and cost of living.

Several top Republicans have also warned that several of Trump’s recent actions could risk alienating voters concerned about the economy.

That included a $1.8bn “anti-weaponisation fund” launched by the Department of Justice to repay individuals, including Trump supporters, who allege they were victims of political prosecutions.

The Department of Justice has since abandoned the plan.

Trump has also requested $1bn in funding for security for his controversial White House ballroom, despite earlier saying that taxpayers would not have to foot the bill.

June 5 (UPI) — Artificial intelligence company Anthropic issued a warning about systems that can improve themselves and said that humans need a way to intervene when necessary.

AI systems will soon be able to better themselves — known as “full-recursive self-improvement” — and that has a lot of benefits, like for health care and science. But just like science fiction movies warn, it could cause serious risks to people, said Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and leader of the Anthropic Institute Marina Favaro in a recent blog post.

“Full recursive self-improvement also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems,” the blog said. “If systems are capable of fully building their own successors, the ways we secure them, monitor them, and shape their behavior all grow much more important.”

Clark called for the industry to give itself a “brake pedal” on CNN Thursday.

“When I look down at the car we’re driving, all I have is a gas pedal. I don’t have a brake pedal, and surely at some point in the future we might want that option,” he said. The inability to validate, verify and trust AI’s behavior is risky, he added.

Clark told CNN that countries have made similar changes in the past.

“We’ve done this before. In the height of the Cold War, under highly tense situations between rivalrous countries, they found ways to stabilize aspects of the nuclear arms race,” he said “All of this has been done before in other domains, and it may need to be something we do in the domain of AI.”

But critics say this talk of curbing AI is nothing new, even from Anthropic, which battled the Pentagon when it wanted full access to use its AI product.

In July 2025, Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. But CEO Dario Amodei said that Anthropic’s AI model Claude could not be used for mass surveillance in the United States or for autonomous weapons without human approval.

On Feb. 27, the Pentagon gave Anthropic a 5 p.m. deadline to comply with its demands that the government be able to use the service as it sees fit. Before the deadline, President Donald Trump announced that no government workers would be allowed to use Anthropic.

Then, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth labeled the company a supply-chain risk, which blocked it from any government contracts, but a judge struck it down in March.

“Anthropic might give the impression of being warm and fuzzy, but their definition of AI safety is narrow,” Steven Murdoch, a professor at University College London, told The Guardian. “Supporting U.S. authorities in the development of offensive capabilities has never been something they have spoken against.”

Murdoch said Anthropic’s blog left out evidence that AI is close to self-improvement.

“It is true that there’s some evidence that AI capabilities have increased and continue to increase with no limits becoming immediately clear,” he said. But, “I don’t think anything has fundamentally changed today that has caused Anthropic to publish this article.”

Murdoch pointed out that Athropic’s call for a pause on AI was similar to other proposals it has made in the past.

“It’s a reminder of what they are concerned about and have been concerned about for many years. I’m sure the attention is welcome, but again this isn’t a new thing,” Murdoch said. “Anthropic have been trying to get the attention of policymakers since they were founded.”

June 5 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday canceled a batch of President Donald Trump‘s immigration policies, forcing the administration to begin processing immigration and asylum applications.

The decision from a judge in Rhode Island said Trump’s immigration policies enacted last fall had left immigrants in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo” because of “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

The 135-page decision from Judge John J. McConnell Jr. said the decision to stop processing immigration applications from people from 39 countries “placed the lives of countless individuals on hold — solely by virtue of their countries of birth.”

The policies in question include a global pause on asylum applications filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a pause on decisions on immigration applications of people from the 39 countries in a travel ban, which prevented them from getting permanent residency status, citizenship and more.

The administration announced the changes after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., in November. Rahmanullah Lakanwal pleaded not guilty.

“USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” McConnell wrote.

“The court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to ‘follow the law’ and ‘do things the right way,'” he wrote. “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”

Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit that helped represent the immigration groups and unions behind the lawsuit, told The New York Times that it celebrates the ruling.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” organization President Skye Perryman said. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers and communities across the country.”

Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, also celebrated the ruling.

“For months, we have heard from Afghan allies whose citizenship ceremonies were canceled, work permits expired while waiting for decisions, green card applications stopped moving and families were left in uncertainty despite doing everything the right way,” The Hill reported VanDiver said in a statement.

“Today’s ruling is a significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them, only to see their cases frozen indefinitely.”

June 5 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him face-to-face to try to bring the four-year-long war between their two countries to an end.

In an open letter to Putin late Thursday, Zelensky said Ukraine wanted to end the conflict through “direct engagement,” adding that it was incumbent on the sides to act, rather than waiting for Washington to take the lead — but other agreed participants such as the United States and European nations “could join the bilateral track” once it was established.

“We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention. Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you. This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited. I am proposing a meeting,” wrote Zelensky.

Russia was on the back foot, on the front and from daily Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, and Putin was running out of time and resources while fuel shortages and constantly rising prices from his endless war were testing the patience of the Russian people, Zelensky said.

“Life without war is infinitely better. And we want to achieve that. I am convinced that the majority of Russians would respond positively to this as well — and you know it. Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war,” he added.

Zelensky rejected suggestions made by Russian officials that he was welcome in Moscow any time, saying any meeting should be held in a country with a track record of mediating in conflicts such as Switzerland, Turkey or nations in the Arab world.

In a wind-ranging 1,800-word missive, the bulk of which was a critique of Putin’s 26-year rule, Zelensky said he wanted to set a clear date for the meeting and that there should be a cease-fire for the duration of the negotiations.

Putin, responding before he had seen the letter, said he was “certainly prepared and willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine,” provided there were compromises, but rejected the idea of a cease-fire.

That was in line with his long-standing position that Russia would only sign up to a fully-formed peace agreement and that it would not stop the fighting until such time as it came into force.

At the same time, Putin reiterated doubts regarding Zelensky’s legitimacy, due to the fact he remains in office two years after his presidential term expired in May 2024.

Elections cannot be held in Ukraine due to martial law, which was declared on the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed the possibility of a Zelensky-Putin summit but didn’t address Zelensky’s claim he was too busy with Iran.

“I’m glad they’re maybe talking about meeting. I think we had a lot to do with it. I think it would be great if they met. They should get it done,” said Trump.

June 4 (UPI) — Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, whose new assignment has drawn bipartisan criticism, won’t be the “permanent” choice for the job, President Donald Trump said Thursday.

Trump, speaking to reporters Thursday the White House, said Pulte’s role as acting director of DNI to replace Tulsi Gabbard, which began Tuesday, would not be “permanent.”

Rather, the president said Pulte will be “very good” as he takes the job on for a “little while,” while also asserting he will be able to “figure it out quickly.”

Gabbard announced her resignation in May, saying she will step down June 30, and Trump’s pick of Pulte to replace her two days ago ignited a backlash among lawmakers of both parties.

A former housing developer and currently director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte — a staunch Trump loyalist — has no experience in foreign intelligence work, a fact that has sparked criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

Sen. Thom Tillis., R-N.C., on Wednesday blasted Pulte as an “incendiary attack dog” for Trump who likely wouldn’t pass Senate muster for confirmation.

“I don’t think he has a prayer” of becoming the permanent DNI, Tillis told CNBC, adding that Pulte’s presence could hurt the GOP congressional majority’s efforts to reauthorize the part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governing warrantless surveillance.

Similarly, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a long-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, decried the choice of Pulte for DNI director, saying Trump is “appointing his top political henchman to one of the most important positions for protecting the safety of Americans and preventing terrorist attacks like September 11th.”

Pulte, he said, “appears to be unscathed by intelligence or any semblance of ethics,” noting he has already used his post at a housing agency “to persecute Trump’s political opponents, including Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Leticia James and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.”

Pulte has alleged fraud against several of Trump’s foes in their mortgage applications, including Cook for claiming two different homes as her primary residence. She has appealed her firing by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Republicans in the United States Senate have renewed their push to pass a controversial $70bn immigration-enforcement funding bill, a top policy priority for President Donald Trump.

But the effort on Thursday faced a series of hurdles, with Democrats forcing votes on several amendments that highlighted controversies related to the Trump presidency.

The rapid-fire votes on the amendments were dubbed a “vote-a-rama“, and they are slated to include issues ranging from Trump’s White House ballroom to his tariff policies and the US-Israel war on Iran.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Early on, Republicans were forced to confront a topic that has dominated headlines in recent weeks: Trump’s proposed $1.776bn “anti-weaponisation” fund.

The fund has been controversial on both sides of the aisle, with critics calling it a slush fund for Trump’s allies.

Several Republicans indicated that the optics of such a fund could be politically catastrophic ahead of November’s midterm elections, and the Department of Justice has since backed away from the scheme.

But Trump himself has avoided saying whether the fund was dead, or just on hold.

It was created as part of a settlement following a lawsuit Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a part of his government, and it was designed to award payouts to alleged victims of politically motivated prosecution.

Senate Democrats have repeatedly called for such a fund to be banned outright, rather than relying on the Trump administration’s commitment not to revive it.

Nevertheless, on Thursday, Senate Republicans rejected the Democrats’ measure to permanently block the fund.

Republican Tom Tillis introduced a second amendment, which would have also banned the settlement fund. Instead, the legislation would have redirected the allocated funds to a separate anti-fraud fund within the Justice Department. That, too, was rejected.

Thursday’s votes on the “anti-weaponisation” fund were just the start of several rounds of voting on issues uncomfortable to the Republican Party.

Schumer, the top Democrat, signalled that other amendments would tackle another part of the IRS settlement: the permanent immunity from tax audits that Trump had secured for himself and his family.

Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement campaign and other issues were also scheduled to be taken up in the day’s amendments.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was not sure whether Republicans would defeat every measure, with some members of the party showing an increasing willingness to stand up to Trump.

“I can’t predict how it comes out,” he said.

Immigration funding bill

The situation on Thursday was the result of a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.

Democrats had pledged not to approve further funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following the killing of two US citizens during immigration operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber, short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

They have instead been forced to pursue a lengthy procedural manoeuvre to bypass the filibuster, which has taken weeks.

The $70bn funding bill had been stalled by the Trump administration’s demand to include $1bn for security upgrades for Trump’s White House ballroom project.

The request came after the president had repeatedly said that no taxpayer dollars would go towards the project.

The security funding, which roiled several Republicans, was subsequently dropped before the voting started.

The Senate’s parliamentarian, an official who interprets the chamber’s rules, had previously ruled that adding ballroom funding to the $70bn bill would make it ineligible for the budget reconciliation process, which allows the passage of fiscal-related bills with a simple majority.

If Senate Republicans remain unified, they are expected to pass the funding bill late Thursday night or early Friday.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill shortly after.

June 4 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday leveled sanctions against Cuban Miguel Díaz-Canel, members of former President Raul Castro‘s family, the Cuban military and other organizations as it continued a crackdown on the country’s communist government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measures against Diaz-Canel the others in a statement, asserting they are being targeted because they “fund the [Cuban] regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world.”

The Cuban president, Rubio said, poses a threat to U.S. national security, while the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, with its “many majority holdings and subsidiaries,” is also now “considered blocked.”

Other organizations newly added to the sanctions list are the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP, Amistur Cuba S.A., Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Minera La Victoria S.A.

The individuals sanctioned include Alejandro Castro Espin, the former head of the Cuban intelligence services and the son of Raul Castro, and Raul Alejandro Castro Calis, Castro Espin’s son.

“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio asserted. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and ‘third-worldist’ movements across our hemisphere and beyond.

“Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations.”

In a stated response, Diaz-Canel said the latest sanctions are “illegitimate” and are “aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.

“This political blindness is added to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks against our country, designed to harm the Cuban people,” he added. “The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will clash with our determination to confront the worst scenarios and resist the imperialist onslaught.”

The newly issued sanctions are the latest in a series of moves designed to ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government.

The Trump administration has set a Friday deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA, the business conglomerate run by Cuba’s Armed Forces, sparking a mass exodus of tourism-related businesses from the island nation.

Meanwhile, Cuba is struggling with the effects of a January 2026 executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump imposing a fuel blockade against the nation on national security grounds.

The move has resulted in shortages of electricity, fuel, medicine and medical supplies across Cuba, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health Organization, which says emergency care, blood banks, laboratories, immunization programs and maternal and child health services have all been “severely disrupted.”

Israel’s supreme court annuls a government ban on the International Committee of the Red Cross visiting Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Colombia’s far-right, pro-Trump candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, is in the lead after Colombia’s first round of elections. If he wins the June 21 runoff against left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda, progressive policies could be reversed. Al Jazeera’s Hala Al Shami explains why US officials are invested in de la Espriella’s success and walks us through the stakes.

June 4 (UPI) — The Kennedy Center ordered its staff Thursday to remove President Donald Trump‘s name from the center by June 12.

A memo was sent out from the center’s general counsel that said they must remove all references from signs, brochures, websites, furniture and more, and that they must update email signatures and letterhead immediately.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the center’s board had overstepped its authority when it voted to add Trump’s name to the center. The memo was the first sign that the center plans to comply with the order.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper said.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, filed a lawsuit on Dec. 23 against Trump and others alleging that the move was illegal.

Trump claimed that naming the center after him was a surprise, but the name was added to the sign the next day.

Justice Department lawyers representing Trump later said the speed of the move showed it had been “prepared and/or purchased prior to the Board’s vote the day before,” The Washington Post reported.

Thursday’s memo also said officials were “considering their options and will provide further guidance shortly” on whether the center will close after July 5. The center was scheduled for two years of closure for a $257 million renovation.

In his decision, Cooper said the renovations are “sorely needed,” and his ruling doesn’t bar the board from closing “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion,” CBS News reported.

“By way of this opinion, the Court does not purport to dictate how the Center should be run, nor does it prescribe any particular plan for the institution — construction, closure or otherwise — moving forward,” he wrote. “It simply holds the Kennedy Center Board to certain minimum requirements imposed by law. Beyond that, the Court will let the parties play on.”

June 4 (UPI) — Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra are leading a crowded field in California’s primary for governor on Thursday with millions of ballots left to count.

The two candidates that receive the most votes will advance to the November election, regardless of party. Democrat Tom Steyer has the third most votes so far.

Sixty-one candidates qualified to appear on the primary ballot to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Polls closed on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. PDT. It is common for California to take days if not weeks to tally enough votes to declare a winner.

Despite millions of votes still being counted, President Donald Trump has alleged that Democrats have cheated in California’s primaries.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” Trump posted on social media. “Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY?”

Trump also declared Hilton the winner of the primary, even though not enough votes have been counted to make that determination.

“Congratulations to Steve Hilton on coming in first, last night, in the California Vote for Governor,” Trump wrote.

Hilton, a former Fox News host, is the top overall vote-getter as of Thursday morning.

Becerra is the former Biden administration U.S. human services and health secretary. Steyer, a billionaire, is a philanthropist and climate activist.

June 4 (UPI) — Thousands of Albanians marched in the capital Tirana for a third day straight to protest against a $1.6 billion luxury resort backed by Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a national marine park off the country’s Adriatic Sea coast.

Some demonstrators in Wednesday’s protest held inflatable flamingos aloft to highlight the impact they fear the project will have in and around Sazan Island, where work recently got underway in the midst of one of the Mediterranean’s most environmentally-vulnerable areas.

Scuffles broke out with police who fired water canon at protesters.

An offer to meet with opponents from Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has staked his premiership on what he has billed as a developmental coup for the former communist state, was rejected as calls for the project to be halted grew, with protests also set to spread to the south of the country.

“From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency. We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits, and so now what we are saying is, if they remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking,” said Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania.

Kushner stumbled upon the site by chance while vacationing in Albania with his wife, Ivanka Trump.

“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated,” Ivanka Trump said.

Environmentalists are worried about the effect the resort will have on an area that includes the currently uninhabited Sazan Island and the nearby wetlands and coastal habitats of the Karaburun-Sazan Marine Park.

BirdLife International said the park’s waters around Sazan and the Karaburun peninsulta were among the last places where Mediterranean monk seals survive and support populations of flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans as well as 200 other species of birds, many of which are endangered.

Sazan Real Estate Development, which is developing the plans in partnership with Kushner’s Miami-based investment firm, Affinity Partners, insisted it was committed to sustainable development.

“Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities. We respect the ongoing public and institutional processes,” said Sazan Real Estate Development chair Asher Abehsera.