intensifies

At least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn, including 15 in Gaza City, according to medical sources.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from Gaza City as Israel’s deadly ground invasion in its genocidal war continues.

An Israeli army spokesperson announced on Tuesday a “temporary” evacuation route for Palestinians via Salah al-Din Street, available for just 48 hours.

Avichay Adraee stated on X that residents could move along Salah al-Din Street southwards from Wadi Gaza.

“Transit through this route will be available for 48 hours starting today … and until Friday,” he said.

Israel has repeatedly struck residential areas, schools and hospitals throughout the Gaza Strip during the 23-month conflict.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Nuseirat in central Gaza, said: “More and more Palestinian families are fleeing Gaza City under the threat of Israeli attacks with no guarantees of safety at all.”

“While we’re here, we met friends, relatives and neighbours, and they told us they spent more than thirteen hours to make this difficult journey to the south of the Strip because of the vast overcrowding of roads. People say they’re totally exhausted,” he said.

“We also met a number of dual nationals still stuck in Gaza who said this is the fifth time they were forced to flee from one area to another under the echoes of explosions and the wide-scale mass expulsion orders issued by the Israeli military,” he added.

“Everyone on the ground is going through a serious crisis. It is a systematic policy by Israel to control Palestinian land and reshape it. What is still unfolding is a humanitarian calamity with no safe exits,” Abu Azzoum explained.

The multimillion-dollar jousting over redrawing California’s congressional districts to boost Democrats and counter President Trump was on full display in recent days, as both sides courted voters less than a month before ballots begin arriving in mailboxes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, national Democratic leaders including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and a slew of political influencers held an hours-long virtual rally Tuesday afternoon, urging Californians to support Proposition 50 in the Nov. 4 special election. Speakers framed the stakes of the ballot measure as nothing short of existential — not just for Democratic interests, but also for democracy.

“It’s all at stake. This is a profound and consequential moment in American history. We can lose this republic if we do not assert ourselves and stand tall at this moment and stand guard to this republic and our democracy. I feel that in my bones,” Newsom said Tuesday afternoon.

If passed, Proposition 50 would gerrymander the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats, bolstering the fates of several Democrats in vulnerable swing districts and potentially cost Republicans up to five House seats.

California’s congressional districts are drawn by a voter-approved independent commission once a decade after the U.S. census. But Newsom and other state Democrats proposed a rare mid-decade redrawing of the districts to increase the number of Democrats in Congress in response to similar efforts in GOP-led states, notably Texas.

Tuesday’s virtual rally, which was emceed by progressive influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, was a cross between an old-school money-raising telethon and new media streaming session. Popular podcasters and YouTubers such as Crooked Media’s Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor (alumni of former President Obama’s administration), Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch and David Pakman shared the screen with political leaders, with an on-screen fundraising thermometer inching higher throughout.

Cohen argued that people like him had been “begging” Democrats to fight Trump. And now elected officials had done their part by getting Proposition 50 on the ballot, he said, urging viewers to donate to support the effort.

Warren argued that Trump was a “would-be king” — but if Democrats could retake control of either house of Congress, that would be stopped, she posited.

“And if we have both houses under Democratic control,” Warren continued, “now we are truly back in the game in terms of making our Constitution work again.”

The exhaustive list of speakers represented the spectrum of the modern left, with standard-bearers such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, alongside rising stars including Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). A number of California delegates, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Reps. Ted. Lieu, Robert Garcia, Pete Aguilar, Jimmy Gomez and Sydney Kamlager-Dove, also spoke.

The event had been scheduled to take place Sept. 10 but was postponed after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier that day.

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former leader of the California Republican Party and chair of an anti-Proposition 50 committee, accused Newsom of “scrambling for out-of-touch messengers to sell his scheme.”

“For Gavin Newsom, it’s all distraction and deflection. Instead of addressing the $283 million price tag taxpayers are stuck with for his partisan power grab, he’s hosting a cringeworthy webinar packed with DC politicians, out-of-state influencers, and irrelevant podcasters, all lining up to applaud his gerrymandered maps,” Millan Patterson said in a statement Tuesday.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned to stop gerrymandering across the nation after his term ended, forcefully denounced Proposition 50 on Monday.

“They are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California,” Schwarzenegger told hundreds of students at an event celebrating democracy at the University of Southern California. “It is insane to let that happen.”

The former governor, a Trump foe who has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC, said the effort to dismantle the independent commission’s congressional districts to counter Trump are anti-democratic.

“They want to get rid of it under the auspices of we have to fight Trump,” Schwarzenegger said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me because we have to fight Trump, [yet] we become Trump.”

And on the morning of Sept. 10, opponents of the ballot measure rallied in Orange County, speaking about how redrawing congressional districts would dilute the voice of communities around the state.

“We’re here because Prop. 50 poses a serious threat to Orange County’s voice, to our communities and to our taxpayers. This measure is not about fairness. It’s about power grab,” said Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen during a rally at the Asian Garden Mall in Little Saigon, a Vietnamese hub in Westminster. “And it comes at the expense of our taxpayers, our small businesses and our minority communities.”

She noted that Little Saigon would be grouped with Norwalk in Los Angeles County if the ballot measure passes.

“Ask anybody in this area if they even know where Norwalk is,” Nguyen said.

Israel has destroyed another high-rise in Gaza City, bringing the number of buildings razed during its campaign to seize the largest urban centre in the Gaza Strip to at least 50, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence.

The attack on Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday came as Israeli forces killed at least 65 people across the Gaza Strip, including 49 in the northern part of the besieged enclave.

The Israeli military said it struck Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday after issuing an evacuation threat, forcing residents and displaced families sheltering in makeshift tents in the neighbourhood to flee.

The head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, Amjad Shawa, who was near the site of the attack, told Al Jazeera that the situation “is scary”, with panic spreading among the people.

“Today, hundreds of families lost their shelters. Israel [is] aiming to force Palestinians to the southern areas using these explosions, but everyone knows that there is no safe place in the south or any humanitarian zone,” Shawa said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the military was “eliminating terrorist infrastructure and nefarious terrorist high-rises”, a talking point that Israel often repeats as it obliterates civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

The attack on Al-Ruya – a five-storey building with 24 apartments, as well as department stores, a clinic and a gym – follows an earlier one on the Al Jazeera Club in central Gaza City, where tents housing displaced families were also hit.

It comes after Israel targeted the 15-storey Soussi Tower on Saturday and the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower on Friday. Several Palestinians sheltering in tent encampments around those towers were wounded.

One family that had their shelter destroyed when the Soussi Tower was reduced to rubble said, “We have nothing left for us.”

“We quickly left the building without bringing anything with us. The Israelis attacked the building half an hour later,” the Palestinian man said. “Now, we are trying to stay away from the eyes of the other people by trying to sew some fabrics and sheets,” he said, referring to his family’s attempt to put up a new shelter.

Israeli escalation in Gaza City

Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the military occupation of Gaza City in August, a move Netanyahu suggested had already led to the displacement of 100,000 Palestinians.

As Israel pushes to displace residents of Gaza City to the south of the enclave, Palestinians have been saying that nowhere is safe in the territory.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement on Sunday warning Palestinians in Gaza City not to trust Israel’s claim that it had set up a humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

“We call on citizens in Gaza City to beware of the occupation’s deceitful claims about the existence of a humanitarian safe zone in the south of the Strip,” it said in a statement.

The Israeli military had designated al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” early on in its campaign against Gaza. Since then, it has been bombed repeatedly.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that “every five to 10 minutes, you can hear the sounds of explosions from all directions in Gaza City”, including heavy bombing in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.

“Israeli forces are using remotely controlled explosive robots, and detonating them in residential streets, destroying neighbourhoods,” he said. In Sheikh Radwan, Mahmoud added, homes, public facilities, schools and a mosque had been hit.

Rescuers reported that at least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed when Israeli forces bombed the al-Farabi school-turned-shelter, west of Gaza City.

Sohaib Foda, who was sleeping on a mattress in Gaza City’s al-Farabi School when the attack took place, said the attack left her and a young relative wounded.

“I heard a thud, and a block fell on my face. My cousin’s daughter, who was sleeping here, got injured and fell beside me. Another block then fell on her head,” Foda said.

“Everyone was screaming. I was scared. When I touched my face, it was covered in blood, and I realised I had been injured.”

Mohammed Ayed, who witnessed the attack, said the school was hit by two rockets. He said teams were still working in the rubble to rescue missing people or recover their remains.

“We have recovered two hands so far,” he said. “As you can see, these are children’s hands.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,368 Palestinians and wounded 162,776 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as famine continues to spread across the enclave.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, meanwhile, said at least five people, including three children, have starved to death in Gaza over the past day.

These figures bring the total number of malnutrition deaths in Gaza to 387, including 138 children, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since the global hunger monitor, IPC, confirmed the famine in northern Gaza on August 22, at least 109 hunger-related deaths have been recorded, 23 of them children, the ministry added.

Academics, United Nations experts and leading rights groups have described the horrific Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a genocide.

Later on Sunday, United States President Donald Trump suggested that he put forward a new proposal to end the war in Gaza, calling it a “final warning” for Hamas.

The Palestinian group acknowledged receiving “ideas” from the US, saying that it welcomes any efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire.

Israeli forces step up air attacks as the military advances with plans to seize Gaza City and push out 1 million people.

Israel’s military has stepped up attacks on Gaza City as part of its expanded operations aimed at seizing the last major population centre in the enclave, forcing tens of thousands of starving Palestinians to flee again.

The Gaza City neighbourhoods of Zeitoun, Sabra, Remal and Tuffah have particularly borne the brunt of the Israeli bombardments in recent days as a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israel’s plans to forcibly displace Palestinians to southern Gaza would increase their suffering.

Thousands of families have fled Zeitoun, where days of continuous strikes have left the neighbourhood devastated. At least seven people were killed on Sunday when an Israeli air strike hit al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said tents and equipment to erect shelters will be provided to the Palestinians who have been displaced multiple times in 22 months of war, which has been called an act of genocide by multiple rights organisations.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said artillery fire and air raids have forced many from their homes.

“The Zeitoun neighbourhood is a very densely populated area, home to many families, including those who have been sheltering there. Residents were surprised when the artillery shelling and the intensive air raids started. Some people stayed. Others started moving. As the violence escalated, many were forced to evacuate – hungry, devastated and displaced yet again, leaving behind everything they had,” Khoudary said.

‘New wave of genocide’

Israel last week announced plans to push deeper into Gaza City and remove its residents to the south, a move that has drawn international condemnation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, said civilians would be moved to “safe zones” even though these areas have also been repeatedly bombed.

Nearly 90 percent of the 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza remain displaced, and an overwhelming number of them are now facing starvation. At least seven more Palestinians died of starvation in Gaza in 24 hours, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday, raising the war’s hunger-related death toll to 258, including 110 children, as a result of Israel’s ongoing siege of the enclave.

On Sunday, Israel killed nearly at least 57 Palestinians, 38 of them aid seekers, taking the total number of Palestinians killed since the war began in October 2023 to nearly 62,000.

Hamas denounced Israel’s plan to set up tents in the south as a cover for mass displacement.

The group said in a statement that the measure amounted to a “new wave of genocide and displacement” and described it as a “blatant deception intended to cover up a brutal crime that the occupation forces prepare to execute”.

There was an atmosphere of despair in Gaza after Israel’s latest forced displacement order, Maram Humaid, Al Jazeera’s online correspondent from Gaza, posted on X.

“There are no words to describe how people in Gaza feel right now. Fear, helplessness, and pain fill everyone as they face a new wave of displacement and an Israeli ground operation,” she posted.

“Family and friends’ WhatsApp groups are full of silent screams and sorrow. God knows people have suffered enough. Our minds are almost paralysed from thinking.”

Displaced and desperate Palestinians are scrambling for scraps of food as they face more bombardment from Israeli forces.

The UN says one in five children in Gaza is malnourished as tens of thousands rely on charity kitchens, whose small portions of food can be their only meal of the day.

“I came at 6am to the charity kitchen to get food for my children, and if I don’t get any now, I have to come back in the evening for another chance,” said Zeinab Nabahan, displaced from the Jabalia refugee camp, told Al Jazeera.

“My children are starving on small amounts of lentils or rice. My children haven’t had bread or any breakfast. They’ve been waiting for me to leave with whatever I can get from the charity kitchen.”

Another resident, Tayseer Naim, told Al Jazeera that “had it not been for God and charity kitchens”, he would not have survived. “We come here at 8am and suffer to get lentils or rice. We suffer a lot, and we leave at midday and walk for about a kilometre.”

‘Man-made famine’

On Sunday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned that Gaza is facing a “man-made famine” and urged a return to a UN-led distribution system.

“We are very, very close to losing our collective humanity,” Juliette Touma, the agency’s communications director, said in a post on X.

She said the crisis had been fuelled by “deliberate attempts to replace the UN-coordinated humanitarian system through the politically motivated ‘GHF’.”

She warned the alternative system promoted by Israel and the United States “brings dehumanisation, chaos, and death” and stressed: “We must return to a unified, UN-led coordination and distribution system based on international humanitarian law. The abomination must end.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) says despite its teams “doing everything” to deliver food assistance in Gaza, current supplies only meet 47 percent of the intended target.

According to the UN agency, around 500,000 people are now on the “brink of famine”, and that only a ceasefire would allow food assistance to be scaled up to the required levels.

The Government Media Office in Gaza said Israel was deliberately starving Palestinians by blocking essential goods, including baby formula, nutritional supplements, meat, fish, dairy products, and frozen fruits and vegetables.

In a statement on Telegram, it said Israel was carrying out “a systematic policy of engineered starvation and slow killing against more than 2.4 million people in Gaza, including more than 1.2 million Palestinian children, in a complete crime of genocide”.

It warned that more than 40,000 infants face severe malnutrition while at least 100,000 other children and patients are in a similar condition.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that aid workers were struggling to respond as resources collapse.

“We are trying to do our best. We are … part of this social fabric. We are linked to the people here, and we are staying with them while Israel threatens to apply its plans to forcibly evacuate Gaza City and destroy the rest of Gaza. There are 1.1 million people here, most of them elderly, women, children and people with disabilities,” Shawa said.

He said workers continued to provide limited meals, medical care and education but warned that “the humanitarian system is collapsing” as Israel strikes aid facilities and restricts supplies.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — Hurricane Erin is now a Category 5 storm, the highest on the class, rapidly intensifying overnight into early Saturday morning as it threatens the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, then will move along the U.S. East Coast.

In an update at 11:20 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center reported an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft showed maximum sustained winds of 160 mph, which passes the 157 mph minimum for Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

In the NHC’s 2:00pm update, Erin remained a Category 5 storm with 160 mph after rapidly intensifying from a 75 mph-Category 1 storm on Friday morning to a 155 mph-Category 4 at the 11 a.m. advisory on Saturday morning.

The storm was located approximately 110 miles north of Anguilla and about 205 miles east-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was traveling west at 16 mph.

The northern Leeward Islands include Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Martin, St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Montserrat.

A tropical storm watch remains for St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, and Sint Maarten. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 30 miles from the center and tropical-force outward to 140 miles.

The storm is expected to skirt the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico on Sunday rather than hit them directly, which could bring strong winds and up to 6 inches of rain through the day Saturday.

“Locally considerable flash and urban flooding, along with landslides or mudslides, are possible,” NHC said, in addition to the possibility of swells.

“Swells generated by Erin will affect portions of the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the Turks and Caicos Islands through the weekend,” the weather service said in its latest update. “These swells will spread to the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the East Coast of the United States early next week.

“These rough ocean conditions will likely cause life-threatening surf and rip currents.”

Forecasters are predicting the storm will make a west-northwest turn Saturday evening, which will come with a “decrease in forward speed,” ahead of an expected northerly early next week.

By Wednesday night, the storm was forecast to be a few hundred miles west of Bermuda and just outside the big tracking cone. Erin then is forecast to travel north hundreds of miles from the East Coast.

Forecasters predict the storm has the potential to affect the U.S. East Coast, including Florida, as well as the Bahamas and Bermuda, next week.

“Erin is expected to produce life-threatening surf and rip currents along the beaches of the Bahamas, much of the East Coast of the U.S., and Atlantic Canada next week,” NHC forecaster Jack Beven said in a discussion.

Erin became the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic storm season Friday. Forecasters had been expecting the storm to intensify into a hurricane since early in the week.

There have been four prior Atlantic named storms so far this season. Tropical Storm Chantal caused major flooding in North Carolina but was the only of the four to make landfall in the United States.

The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30. The peak hurricane season goes from mid-August through September and into mid-October. Ninety-three percent of hurricane landfalls along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the East Coast have occurred from August through October, the Weather Channel reported in citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Last year at this time, there also had been five named storms.

Schools and workplaces close, hundreds of flights cancelled and thousands evacuate as Typhoon Podul nears island.

Thousands of people have evacuated, schools have closed, and hundreds of flights have been cancelled as Typhoon Podul approaches southern Taiwan with wind gusts as strong as 191kph (118 mph).

The mid-strength Typhoon Podul is expected to make landfall later on Wednesday, and was reported to be intensifying as it approached Taiwan’s southeastern city of Taitung, weather officials said.

Podul “is strengthening”, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Lin Ting-yi said, with the typhoon on track to hit the sparsely populated Taitung County at about noon local time (04:00 GMT).

After making landfall, the storm is expected to hit Taiwan’s more densely populated western coast before moving into the Taiwan Strait and towards China’s southern province of Fujian later this week.

As much as 600mm (almost 24 inches) of rain has been forecast in southern mountainous areas over the next few days, the CWA said, while nine cities and counties announced the suspension of work and school, including the southern metropolises of Kaohsiung and Tainan.

Taiwan’s government said that more than 5,500 people had been evacuated in advance of the typhoon’s arrival, and all domestic flights – a total of 252 – as well as 129 international routes have been cancelled, the transport ministry said.

Typhoon Podul lashed Orchid Island with gusts of up to 155 kph at around 8 a.m. Wednesday, contributing to a power outage that hit 258 households in the island’s Tungching Village. Winds and rain were also intensifying in Taitung. pic.twitter.com/qaeCwFg9Vu

— Focus Taiwan (CNA English News) (@Focus_Taiwan) August 13, 2025

Taiwan’s two main international carriers, China Airlines and EVA Air, said their cancellations were for routes out of Kaohsiung, with some flights from the island’s main international airport at Taoyuan stopped as well.

In the capital, Taipei, which is home to Taiwan’s financial markets and is being spared the typhoon so far, residents reported clear skies and some sunshine.

Typhoon Danas, which hit Taiwan in early July, killed two people and injured hundreds as the storm dumped more than 500mm (19.6 inches) of rain across the south over a weekend, causing widespread landslides and flooding.

That was followed by torrential rain from July 28 to August 4, with some areas recording more than a year’s worth of rainfall in a single week. The week of bad weather left five people dead, three missing, and 78 injured, a disaster official said previously.

Taiwan is accustomed to frequent tropical storms from July to October, while scientists say human-driven climate change is causing more intense weather patterns.

A devastating flash flood has torn through Texas in the United States, killing dozens, including children, and leaving many others missing.

Search and rescue teams are working around the clock, deploying helicopters, boats, and drones to search for survivors, some stranded on trees and areas isolated by destroyed roads, and to recover victims’ bodies.

Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ summer camp along a river in Kerr County, suffered the most damage, with more than two dozen campers still unaccounted for. The picturesque landscape, with its shallow rivers winding through hills and valleys, creates ideal conditions for deadly flash floods, making it one of the most flood-prone US regions.

In the early hours of July 4, 2025, floodwaters surged through an area about 112km (70 miles) west of San Antonio that houses summer camps and small communities. At least 50 people have been killed so far, while 27 girls from one camp are still missing.

The deluge began when heavy rainfall sent water rushing down hillsides into creeks, which then overwhelmed the Guadalupe River.

By Saturday, rescue personnel searched through a devastated landscape of twisted trees, overturned vehicles, and mud-covered debris in an increasingly urgent effort to find survivors. Authorities have not specified the total number of missing people beyond the children from Camp Mystic.

The powerful floodwaters rose 26 feet (8 metres) on the Guadalupe in just 45 minutes before dawn on Friday, sweeping away homes and vehicles. The rains continued on Saturday, with flash flood warnings and watches remaining in effect.

WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.

The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.

Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.

The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.

They have not spoken since, a White House official said.

Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.

The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.

‘Subjecting himself to arrest’

Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.

“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”

“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”

The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.

“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.

“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”

A backfiring effort at deterrence

Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”

“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”

The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.

The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”

Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.

“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

‘All options on the table’

Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.

But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.

“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”

The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”

“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”

Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.

DONALD Trump called Elon Musk a “big-time drug addict” as his spat with the world’s richest man intensified.

The US President is said to have blasted his billionaire ex-backer as reliant on ketamine in phone calls.

2

It came after the Tesla billionaire linked Mr Trump to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Their feud went public on Thursday night as both men used their own social media platforms — X and Truth Social — to insult each other.

Mr Musk, 53, turned on the US leader, calling his Congressional spending bill a “disgusting abomination” on Wednesday.

The President, 78, has called it his “big, beautiful bill”, but Mr Musk believes it will increase national debt by an unsustainable amount.

It triggered the ugly public bust-up, with Musk calling for Trump to be impeached and accusing him of being a close associate of Epstein.

Yesterday, Mr Musk deleted the post, which was seen hundreds of millions of times.

The Washington Post reported Mr Trump used private calls to urge his allies not to pour fuel on the fire and told Vice President JD Vance to be cautious.

But the President, whose campaign took £250million from Mr Musk, is also said to have become weary with the tycoon’s alleged drug use.

He called Mr Musk an “addict” in the calls and claimed he “lost his mind” after leaving the administration.

The businessman previously admitted using ketamine, but it is alleged he became so hooked last year it affected his kidneys.

Mr Musk officially left the government last week but said he would remain as a “friend and adviser” to Mr Trump.

The President last night said he had “no intention” of speaking to Mr Musk, adding: “I think it’s a very bad thing because he’s very disrespectful”.

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Ukraine has destroyed Russian strategic bombers in an unprecedented undercover drone operation while Russia launched its biggest-yet air raid on Ukraine’s cities and intensified attacks on its northern region of Sumy, when the two sides met for peace talks in Istanbul.

The two respective drone operations were emblematic of how direct peace talks, which began on May 15, have not abated the intensity of the conflict and may have deepened it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly pledged a response.

Russia’s drone-and-missile attack on Saturday night involved 472 Shahed kamikaze drones, four cruise missiles and three ballistic missiles. Ukraine neutralised 385 aerial targets, its air force said, including three of the cruise missiles.

Ukraine’s operation Spiderweb came a day later, and hit the types of planes Russia has used to launch those cruise missiles – Tupolev-22M3, Tupolev-95 and Tupolev-160, among others.

Spiderweb involved 117 drones smuggled into Russia and launched simultaneously near Russian airfields where the bombers were parked.

Video released by Ukraine showed Tu-95s exploding in orange flames as the drones passed over them, demonstrating that their fuel tanks were full and they were in service.

Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU), which carried out the operation, told Ukrainian media 41 planes were hit, which, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, amounted to “34 percent of the strategic cruise missile carriers stationed at air bases”. The SBU estimated the damage at $7bn.

Western military analysts and open-source media had not fully corroborated Ukraine’s story by Wednesday, but fires and explosions were reported at five Russian bases.

For the first time, Ukraine claimed to have hit the Olenya airbase in the Russian Arctic, almost 2,000km (1,240 miles) from Ukraine, where all Tu-95 bombers were reported destroyed.

Also reportedly struck were the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, more than 4,000km (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, where three Tu-95 strategic bombers were reported destroyed; the Dyagilevo airbase in Ryazan, only 175km (110 miles) from downtown Moscow; and the Ivanovo airfield, 250km (155 miles) northeast of the Russian capital, where at least one A-50 was destroyed – a $500m airborne radar Russia uses to identify Ukrainian air defence systems and coordinate Russian fighter jet targeting. Fire was reported at a fifth airfield, also near Moscow.

Zelenskyy called it “an absolutely brilliant result, an independent result of Ukraine”, and said it had been “a year, six months and nine days from the start of planning”.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence admitted that “in Murmansk and Irkutsk Regions, as a result of [First Person View] drones launched from an area in close proximity to airfields, several aircraft caught fire,” but that similar attacks were repelled in Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur.

Russia also said “some participants of the terrorist attacks were detained,” although Zelenskyy said “our people who prepared the operation were withdrawn from Russian territory on time.”

“Russia regularly deploys Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 to launch … cruise missiles against Ukraine,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, adding, “The downing of Russian A-50 aircraft has previously temporarily constrained Russian aviation activities over Ukraine.”

Russian pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar and Ukrainian military observer Tatarigami said Russia no longer builds chassis for Tu-95s and Tu-22s, making them impossible to replace. Bloomberg reported that Russia’s reliance on sanctioned Western components will keep it from putting even damaged aircraft back into service.

The New York Times estimated Ukraine may have destroyed or damaged 20 aircraft, but it is possible that not all strike video has yet been posted on open-source media.

“If even half the total claim of 41 aircraft damaged/destroyed is confirmed, it will have a significant impact on the capacity of the Russian Long Range Aviation force to keep up its regular large scale cruise missile salvoes against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure,” aviation expert Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute told The New York Times.

The operation “will force Russian officials to consider redistributing Russia’s air defence systems to cover a much wider range of territory”, said the ISW.

Ukraine’s SBU struck again on June 3, damaging the Kerch Bridge, a vital Russian supply line to Crimea, for the third time during the war. Video showed an underwater explosion against one of the bridge’s stanchions, suggesting Ukraine had used an underwater unmanned vehicle.

Moscow denied there was any real damage.

Russia creeps forward

Marring Ukraine’s success was the news of persistent Russian advances.

The most alarming were near the northern city of Sumy, only 30km (20 miles) from the Russian border.

Geolocated footage showed that Russian troops took the villages of Konstyantynivka on the border and Oleksiivka, 4km (2.5 miles) from the border, on Sunday.

By Tuesday, Russian forces were close enough to launch rocket artillery into the city of Sumy, reportedly killing four people and wounding 30.

“Rocket artillery against an ordinary city – the Russians struck right on the street, hitting ordinary residential buildings. Sleazebags,” said Zelenskyy.

On Sunday, Russian troops also appeared to have seized the settlements of Dyliivka and Zorya, north and west of Toretsk in Ukraine’s east.

Geolocated footage indicated that Russian troops had also advanced towards Lyman and Kurakhove, two other key targets in Ukraine’s east.

These gains were part of a slow advance that has gone on for more than a year, but they were signs of Putin’s determination to complete his conquest of Ukraine’s east.

Talks secure another POW exchange

That determination was on display in Istanbul, where Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met on Monday for a second round of peace talks.

Russia presented a ceasefire memorandum that demanded Ukraine formally cede all the territory Russia has taken in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, plus the parts of those regions it has not yet seized, which could take years to conquer and come at great cost.

Syrskii said Russian casualties this year alone passed the 200,000 mark on Tuesday – a figure Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify.

Russia’s memorandum also demanded a limit to the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, and a commitment that Ukraine will neither join foreign military alliances nor allow foreign troops on its soil.

It also demanded a Ukrainian election within 100 days of signing the ceasefire agreement, underlining Moscow’s desire to replace the pro-Western Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

These demands are consistent with the terms Putin laid out in a speech in June 2024, and Ukrainian negotiators, who had not seen Russia’s memorandum before arriving at the talks at 1pm on Monday, departed after little more than an hour.

The two sides did agree to an exchange of at least 1,000 prisoners of war, and possibly as many as 1,200, prioritising the young (18-25) and wounded. They also agreed to an exchange of 6,000 bodies a side.

They agreed to hold a third round of talks in the last 10 days of June, with Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, suggesting it involve Putin and Zelenskyy, “because decisions can only be made by those who really make decisions”.

Some observers thought it was possible that the two leaders would meet at the first round of talks on May 15, but only Zelenskyy showed up.

“The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime,” explained Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, on his Telegram channel.

“Our army is pushing forward and will continue to advance. Everything that needs to be blown up will be blown up, and those who must be eliminated will be,” he concluded.

More sanctions for Russia?

United States President Donald Trump has refrained from imposing new sanctions on Moscow, but his stance is now losing supporters in the US Congress.

Sidney Blumenthal, a former presidential adviser, and Lindsey Graham said they would this week table legislation imposing 500 percent tariffs on any country that imports oil, gas and uranium from Russia. Graham called it “the most draconian bill I’ve ever seen in my life in the Senate.”

They made the announcement after a weekend trip to Kyiv and a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

“What I learned on this trip was he’s preparing for more war,” Graham said of Putin.

The bill would target China and India, which account for the bulk of Russian energy exports, totalling 233bn euros ($266bn) last year, according to a BBC investigation.

But it could theoretically include European Union members, who spent a reported 23bn euros ($26bn) on Russian oil and gas last year.

A number of EU members sought exceptions from Russian oil bans in early 2023, and the EU has never banned Russian gas, though it has almost completely stopped importing it.

A Cameroonian soldier was killed and three others were wounded during a two-night attack by Boko Haram terrorists from 19 to 20 May. The assault occurred in Kerawa, a locality on the border with Nigeria, within the Kolofata sub-division of the Mayo-Sava division in the Far North region.

A member of the local vigilante committee said the assailants, who came from Nigeria, targeted a Cameroonian military post. “After opening fire on the post, the assailants quickly fled towards the Nigeria-Cameroon border,” he stated.

The recent attack highlights an alarming trend, as Boko Haram terrorists have become more aggressive since March, utilising previously unseen sophisticated weaponry during their operations. Notably, one major incident occurred on the night of March 24 to 25, 2025, in Wulgo, in the Logone-et-Chari division, where 12 Cameroonian soldiers lost their lives. 

This week’s deadly assault serves as a reminder that, despite claims of a retreat by the terrorists, the threat they pose remains constant within the Lake Chad Basin. Even with strong responses from the Cameroonian army, Boko Haram continues to conduct violent operations, instilling fear and destabilising the border areas with Nigeria. This comes despite repeated assertions from the military that they have broken the back of Boko Haram in the region.

As part of its intensified violent campaign, Boko Haram/ISWAP increased the deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along critical highways in the Lake Chad region, especially in Nigeria. Over the past month, numerous IED detonations occurred, resulting in casualties among both civilians and security forces.

Recent developments have seen two significant bridges – one in the Gujiba local government area of Yobe State and the other in the Biu local government area of Borno State – damaged by IED blasts attributed to the terrorist group. These incidents have significantly disrupted mobility, making entire routes perilous and putting commuters at heightened risk of attacks, particularly in resettled communities that are already unstable.

The destruction of these essential infrastructures also threatens humanitarian efforts and the region’s economic stability. Human rights groups, humanitarian organisations, and local media have cautioned for months that resettling populations without adequate security measures may expose them to reprisals and further displacement.

Coronation Street’s Kit Green makes a shocking discovery next week on the ITV soap that paves the way for deadly scenes on the ITV soap involving villain Mick Michaelis

There’s a jaw-dropping moment for one Coronation Street character next week and it could change everything.

Kit Green will feature in a life-changing twist, with a discovery leading to some deadly scenes on the ITV soap. One moment in upcoming episodes, following a flashback special, will see Kit uncover something truly shocking.

As he considers what he’s discovered he’s warned off, but it seems he might let slip something leading to an explosive set of episodes. A new spoiler video reveals the moment when Kit comes face-to-face with a new character, only for him to realise he shares a link with them.

Something the character says rings alarm bells for Kit who literally stops in his tracks, and the penny seems to drop. With that he has one question, before he’s told something that possibly backs up what he thinks he’s uncovered.

In the clip Kit pins Brody Michaelis up against a wall after he steals from the corner shop, where Kit’s mother Bernie Winter works. Given Kit asks for Brody’s name in the scene, it hints Kit is unaware he is the son of Lou and Mick Michaelis – while he did see him with the pair last week.

READ MORE: Coronation Street Craig Tinker’s death ‘revealed’ in first look at ‘horrific’ final scenes

All has just been revealed about Mick and Lou’s past with Kit, with the trio being friends when they were teens. It all fell apart though, as revealed in Friday’s flashback episode, when Mick was sent to prison for a crime Kit was involved in.

Mick took the fall and Kit soon fled, never seeing Mick or Lou again until now. Kit also realised Lou and Mick had a son, and he appeared to clock on that Lou was pregnant back when they knew each other, or that she had a baby not long after they went their separate ways.

With that it’s become apparent that something happened between Kit and Lou in the past, and Mick has no idea. So Kit’s run-in with Brody next week opens up a can of worms when he finds out Brody’s birthday.

Taking down some personal details, Brody reveals his name and that he was born in January 2009. As soon as he hears this Kit stops writing and looks very shocked, realising this was around the time he last saw Lou and Mick was sent away.

Questioning whether he could be the real father of Brody he confronts Brody’s mother Lou. He says: “Is he mine? Lou, could Brody be mine?”

Lou doesn’t even deny it and absolutely hints Kit is correct. Telling him “not to rock the boat”, she responds: “Mick loves him. He’s his dad and has been for 16 years. Please don’t do this.”

But spoilers for next week reveal that Kit will make Mick reconsider Lou’s loyalty with a comment. So does Kit tell Mick that he might be Brody’s dad? After all Mick does find out the truth, as actor Joe Layton teased the villain would be “blindsided” to find out that something happened between them, and that he might not be Brody’s biological father.

Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .