The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US has banned entry from non-Americans who have been in the DR Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.
All DR Congo’s players are based outside the country and will not be affected by the restrictions now the training camp has been cancelled.
“If there are other people that are going to be coming in, they need to have a separate bubble from that team,” Giuliani said.
“If they end up coming, and any of those people end up symptomatic, they are risking the entire team being able to come and compete in this World Cup.”
On Friday the public health risk from the Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo was raised from “high” to “very high” by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk in the wider region in Africa was “high” but that it remained “low” globally.
Dr Congo are due to play friendlies against Denmark on 3 June in Belgium and Chile on 9 June in Spain.
The World Cup runs from 11 June to 19 July, and DR Congo play Portugal in their opening game on 17 June.
WASHINGTON — Before being deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests last summer, U.S. Marines were given 12 rules for engaging with protesters, and Rule 1 was clear: Force “of any kind” was allowed only as a last resort.
If force were used, the rule stated, it “should be the minimum necessary to accomplish the mission.”
That detail is among 178 pages of federal documents released by the Marine Corps to the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times.
The documents paint a thorough picture of how Marines prepared to deploy in Southern California, where they stood alongside National Guard members and agents with the Department of Homeland Security.
The documents also illuminate a glaring contrast between the training of Marines and that of immigration agents, who have been accused repeatedly of using unnecessary force against peaceful protesters, bystanders and immigrants during enforcement operations.
“Ironically, I would’ve felt much safer with Marine engagement than with DHS because of the depth of training,” said Ryan Schwank, a former instructor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits at the ICE Academy within the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.
Schwank is a whistleblower who resigned in February after revealing that the Trump administration had slashed immigration officer training. After reviewing the documents obtained by American Oversight, he said the training given to Marines on crowd control was “significantly more in-depth and longer than training given to an ICE officer, even under the best of circumstances.”
An ICE agent walks through tear gas that was fired to push protesters back during a raid on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on June 20, 2025.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions and instead pointed to a February news release that said training has not been cut back and that new hires receive additional training after leaving the academy.
“ICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers,” said Lauren Bis, a department spokesperson. “Officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”
Schwank noted that the Marines and ICE officers came to Southern California with different objectives: As protectors of people and property, the Marines had a more limited, reactive mission, while ICE officers were charged with making arrests, a confrontational role.
“We’re giving [ICE officers] less training on it and fewer refreshers than the Marines are getting and yet we’re putting them in a situation where they’re taking the more confrontational actions to where they’re more likely to have to make split-second decisions,” Schwank said.
For most of history, he added, ICE agents detained people who were already in the custody of another law enforcement agency. He said ICE was never meant to act as riot police.
“The real fundamental problem isn’t ICE agents using force,” Schwank said. “It’s ICE agents using force in an environment they are not trained for.”
The training of Marines, and the lead-up to their deployment, is outlined in the documents reviewed by The Times.
On June 6, a commanding general emailed other generals to say that “national-level leadership” had directed Marines to assume an “alert posture” and be ready to support the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and ICE officers who were already responding to civil unrest in downtown Los Angeles.
The Marines would safeguard federal facilities and thus “protect lives and property through the restoration of civil order,” the email said.
Marines push back anti-ICE protesters in front of the Federal Building during a “No Kings Day” in downtown Los Angeles last June.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
First, though, they needed to be trained.
The five-day course reviewed use-of-force policies, less-lethal weapons and handling of civil disturbances.
Overall, the 12 rules emphasized safety, urging Marines to be reasonable, to de-escalate tensions and to avoid confrontations with individuals who posed no threat.
Marines could use non-deadly force, if necessary, to control a situation or protect themselves or other federal personnel, and deadly force “only when all lesser means have failed.”
“Exercise due regard for the safety of innocent bystanders when using any type of force,” the rules state.
Schwank said there is no equivalent to the Marines course at Homeland Security. When he left the academy in February, he said, “there was no crowd control training, period.”
Crowd control was briefly added to the curriculum in 2021 for experienced law enforcement officers, he said, but it was later removed. ICE recruits may also have gotten lessons on crowd control after leaving the academy and joining their respective field offices, he said.
When Schwank left the agency, a six-hour class called “Public Order Public Safety” was in development for the 2026 curriculum, according to documents he provided to Congress. Homeland Security did not respond when asked if the class had started.
“I wouldn’t assume that any of the ICE officers on scene in L.A. had received any sort of actual crowd control class,” Schwank said. “They might have gotten a one-to-two-hour PowerPoint slideshow, but that would’ve been it.”
Marine Col. Beth R. Smith confirmed that the entire 2nd Battalion 7th Marines received academic and practical training before deploying to Los Angeles.
Managing civil disturbances has been an issue for Homeland Security since at least 2021, according to an audit conducted by the agency’s internal watchdog review of a 2020 deployment to Portland, Ore.
That year, President Trump mobilized federal power against the protests that spilled into Portland streets after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Trump sent 755 Homeland Security agents to defend federal property in what would come to be seen as a dry run for much larger operations of his second term.
A protester damages a Waymo vehicle at Los Angeles Street and Arcadia Street in L.A. on June 8, 2025.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Nested on rooftops, agents launched chemical weapons against protesters. Ground forces fired less-lethal rounds at point-blank range and forced participants into unmarked vans without explanation.
The audit by the Homeland Security inspector general found that only seven of 63 officers reviewed had received any level of riot and crowd control training. Some officers told investigators that they needed additional training, and many “questioned their involvement in the operation” due to the lack of preparation.
”Without the necessary policies, training, and equipment, DHS will continue to face challenges securing Federal facilities during periods of civil disturbance that could result in injury, death, and liability,” the audit concluded.
As of spring 2025, Homeland Security records show, the department had not corrected the training failures flagged in the audit years earlier.
Schwank agreed that the concerns raised in the inspector general’s report were never addressed.
Liz Hempowicz, deputy executive director of American Oversight, said the Marine Corps’ emphasis on de-escalation and on using force only as a last resort stands in stark contrast to what happened on the ground in Los Angeles with immigration agents.
The practices outlined in the documents “differ from positions taken by senior DHS leadership, whose separate internal communications revealed a mindset that appeared far more encouraging of violence,” she said.
Internal Homeland Security emails also obtained by American Oversight revealed that the agency’s lead attorney said federal agents in Los Angeles should have “just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away.”
“These records underscore that the difference between disciplined restraint and unnecessary harm can come down to the tone set at the top — and when that tone shifts toward hostility, the human cost can be devastating,” Hempowicz said.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a military research group, said that for Homeland Security, the issue is partly a training deficiency and partly a cultural shift against agent accountability.
“Trump talks about ‘the enemy within’ — this is what he’s talking about,” she said. “To some at DHS, the enemy within is all immigrants, it’s cartels — it’s also groups that are protesting the government.”
Conversely, the Marines’ documents emphasized personal liability and responsibility. For example, one page said that “if you either use more force than is necessary, or respond with DEADLY-force to a NON-deadly threat — You will likely lose your right to self-defense, and you will be viewed, under the law, as the ‘Aggressor.’”
Marines were told to immediately report anyone violating the 12 rules of engagement.
The high level of training for Marines shows that command considered the optics of military personnel harming or even killing civilians, Kavanagh said. But just because the deployment worked out last year doesn’t make it a good idea in the long run, she said.
Kavanagh, alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, opposed the military deployments to Los Angeles last year, maintaining that Marines are trained for foreign combat, not domestic crowd control.
“I see these deployments as a recipe for disaster,” she said.
Schwank said ICE’s training touches on personal liability but not in as much depth. Last fall, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said ICE officers “have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.”
On the ground in Los Angeles, ICE agents and other local law enforcement fired a range of less-lethal weapons at protesters, such as pepper balls, hard foam rounds or canisters delivering flash-bang grenades and tear gas.
At a June 12 protest, a federal agent shoved freelance journalist Anna Sophia Moltke to the ground, causing sprains on her left arm and leg and deep scrapes to her hip and knee that have since scarred. She was carrying a camera, she said, and wore clear press credentials and a helmet that said “PRESS.”
“I remember distinctly there being no violence at all until police and ICE showed up,” she said. “We saw them firing rubber bullets into the crowd. People started running away. I was halfway turned around when they started rushing the crowd, and a tall, 6-foot-4 masked man used both hands to push me onto the concrete.”
Moltke said she recalled a large group of protesters gathered near the Marines stationed at the northern end of the detention center, just before police and ICE swept through and forced her to the ground. To her knowledge, she said the Marines remained at their post and didn’t participate in street skirmishes.
This is especially important if you’re planning to go abroad
In 2020 the red passports were replaced with blue ones(Image: simonbradfield via Getty Images)
UK holidaymakers still carrying an old red passport have been issued a summer travel warning.
If you’re planning a getaway this year, it’s essential to examine your passport before jetting off due to strict entry requirements in place across various countries. Many nations enforce rules demanding that your passport remains valid for an extra six months prior to your departure for international travel. Known as the ‘six-month validity rule’, many travellers using pre-Brexit red passports may find their documents lack the necessary time left on them.
Countless other destinations, including all those within the Schengen zone, operate a three-month passport validity requirement. UK travellers can therefore only enter these nations if their passport has at least three months’ validity remaining.
If you’re still in possession of a red passport, checking its expiry date is absolutely vital. Following Brexit, your passport must be less than 10 years old on the day you arrive in the EU, and its expiry date needs to be at least three months beyond your planned departure date from the EU.
Most individuals, quite reasonably, assume that an adult passport is valid for 10 years, but if yours was issued before October 1, 2018, additional months may have been tacked onto its expiry date if the previous passport was renewed before it had completely expired.
To find out whether your passport will remain valid for your trip, head to GOV.UK, look up your destination country and select ‘entry requirements’. Bear in mind that you are only permitted to stay for a maximum of 90 days within any six-month period, reports Wales Online.
Among the countries that enforce a six-month passport validity rule are the USA, Australia, Thailand, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia. If your passport doesn’t have sufficient time remaining, you will be unable to travel as planned.
“Well…I’ve decided it’s TIME,” she wrote in the caption of an Instagram reel on Wednesday. “The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI and share it with all of you. Also, FYI: the jobs women hold are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using AI at a rate 25% lower than men on average. We don’t want to be left behind. So…do you want to learn with me?”
In the video, which the star shared across social media platforms, Witherspoon said she was with 10 women at a book club this week. “I said to the 10 of them, ‘How many of you guys use AI?’ And only three of them used AI. And then I said, ‘How many of the three of you feel like you really know what you’re doing or using it the right way?’ And there was only one person,” she said.
“So, if three out of 10 women are the only ones using AI, that means 70% of that group is not keeping up. The thing I’ve learned about technology is if you don’t get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you. So you have to have little bits of learning just to keep up.”
The “Big Little Lies” star then seemingly put out a feeler for an A.I. learning course saying, “I think we should learn the basics together and learn some really good tools that are going to make our everyday lives easier and better. Do you want me to share what I’m learning with you?”
One group that was especially vocal in their opposition to A.I., was the literary community, and writers and authors across the country didn’t hold back when sharing their two cents.
Bestselling “Bad Feminist” author Roxane Gay chimed in on Threads, writing, “Oh Reese. Absolutely not.”
“This is obviously a scripted ad and it’s genuinely infuriating. Notice how AI’s biggest defenders are the ones cashing checks from it,” wrote screenwriter and director Charlene Bagcal on Threads. “AI isn’t inevitable. Technology follows society. If people stop using it, it dies. We still have agency.”
“Jagged Little Pill” author and literary agent Eric Smith weighed in, “As someone who champions authors and books the way you do, this is so disappointing.”
“AI plagiarized all my books. It seems unlikely that I’ll be ‘left behind’ if I don’t use it, given that it’s trained on work I did years ago,” wrote “Get Well Soon” author Jennifer Wright.
Writer and actor Rati Gupta said, “How am *I* the one being “left behind” by not using AI when *my* cognitive function will remain fully intact and uncompromised?”
And Sophia Benoit posted, “There’s something particularly insidious about seeing that women— the group you have built your brand on— have not adopted something and instead of assuming it’s out of wisdom, infantalizing them with ‘we’re falling behind.’”
In 2021, Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, partnered with World of Women (WoW), an NFT collective, and the actor similarly caught flak from followers for tweeting “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?”
Representatives for Witherspoon have not responded to the Times request for comment.
