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A stunning island that could easily compete with the likes of the Maldives has been left to rot for more than 70 years, after all of its residents abandoned their homes

With sugar-like sands, cobalt waters, and lush greenery, this tiny island feels like paradise – but one thing is missing.

From the outside, the island of Faray might look like something straight out of a postcard, but look closer and you’ll realise it’s been left to rot for more than 70 years. Situated off the northeastern coast of Scotland, in the Orkney archipelago, this tiny isle once had a flourishing community – boasting a population of 83 people back in 1871.

A metalled road ran the entire length of the island, meaning travelling across the land and visiting your neighbour was a breeze. Locals opted for this piece of infrastructure over building a jetty for receiving or sending goods – which meant if you arrived by boat you’d have to do a pretty big leap to reach the sand.

READ MORE: Abandoned UK island with only one road running through it loved by the Beckhams

Faray, pronounced Fair-ee, even had its own school – providing free education for children and teens. However, in 1946, the school closed – which ultimately led to its demise.

“[The school’s closure] made the island untenable for young families, particularly as no mention is made in any source of there being a regular visit from a doctor or midwife,” explains the Institute for Northern Studies. “Many inhabitants settled in Eday or Westray, and between 1972-2009 the island was rented by first one family from Westray, and then another from Eday in order to raise sheep.”

It is believed Faray attempted to advertise its empty properties to those living nearby, but the campaign flopped and no interest was shown. In 1947, the last family residing on the island left, citing ‘the lack of regular boat service enabling them to maintain regular contact with the outside world’. Ruins of dwelling houses and the former school still remain on the island – acting as an omen of what once was.

Faray, along with other uninhabited islands including Holm and Red Holm, are now Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Special Areas of Conservation due to their important breeding sites for grey seals. This is what has made Faray a popular destination for divers and tourists alike – who may also spot otters seabirds if they’re lucky.

The island was bought by Orkney Islands Council back in 2019 for its ‘strategic development potential’. Proposals to build a huge wind farm consisting of six wind turbines were later approved by the Scottish Government in December 2022, despite concerns from environmentalists. It wipes out the chance for Faray to reestablish itself as a desirable community, but prevents the island from becoming completely forgotten.

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When Clayton Kershaw made his major league debut as a gangly 20-year-old with a devastating curveball, he was considered a one-in-a-million talent.

On Wednesday he entered a much smaller club, becoming the 20th pitcher in history to strike out 3,000 batters. The milestone came in the sixth inning on his 100th pitch of the night, a 1-and-2 slider the Chicago White Sox’s Vinny Capra took for a called strike.

Kershaw then walked off the mound alone with his thoughts before being mobbed by his teammates on the warning track in front of the dugout. The Dodgers marked the moment with a video of his considerable career highlights on the video boards above the outfield pavilions.

An hour later the Dodgers had even more to celebrate when Freddie Freeman’s two-out RBI single capped a three-run ninth-inning rally in a walk-off 5-4 win.

“It’s the last box for Clayton to check in his tremendous career,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who doubted many more pitchers will ever join the 3K club.

“You’ve got to stay healthy, you’ve got to be good early in your career, you’ve got to be good for a long time,” he said. “I’m a fan first and I’ve kind of appreciated longevity and moments like that, as opposed to one moment in time. The consistency is something that should be valued.”

Roberts said before the game he would manage differently as Kershaw approached the milestone and he did, allowing him to start the sixth inning despite having made 92 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a game in more than two years.

He would need just eight more. Capra was the 27th batter Kershaw faced and the 15th he took to a two-strike count.

“It’s a little bit harder when you’re actually trying to strike people out,” Kershaw said. “I never really did that before.”

But he could sense the sellout crowd of 53,536 pulling for him every time he got close.

“They wanted it for me so bad,” he said. “And strikeouts tonight, I didn’t really do my part. But you could feel the tension and the fans. They were trying to will me to do it.”

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The Dodgers entered the ninth trailing 4-2 but loaded the bases with no outs on a single by Michael Conforto and walks to Tommy Edman and Hyeseong Kim.

Shohei Ohtani drove in one run on a ground ball to second, hustling up the line to avoid the double play. Mookie Betts followed with a sacrifice fly to the warning track in left-center to score Edman with the tying run.

Ohtani then stole second, scoring two batters later on Freeman’s single to right.

That kept Kershaw, who gave up a season-high nine hits, from taking his first loss of the season. But the Dodgers may have suffered an even bigger loss on the first pitch of the Capra at-bat when Chicago’s Michael Taylor slid hard into Max Muncy on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third.

Muncy, who hit a team-high .333 in June, writhed on the ground before being helped off the field, favoring his left knee. His condition was not immediately known.

Roberts said Muncy will undergo an MRI exam on Thursday but added “that we feel optimistic and our hope is that it’s a sprain.”

Taylor also left the game with a left shoulder bruise.

Nearly three hours earlier Kershaw had been greeted by a loud ovation when he stepped onto the field to stretch about 40 minutes before game time. But the loudest roar — aside the one for the record strikeout — came when Kershaw bounded out of the dugout to start the sixth.

“The energy in the crowd definitely palpable,” he said. “That ovation was something that I’ll never forget, for sure. And then the toast after the game with everybody. I’ll remember those things.”

The White Sox, meanwhile, wanted no part of the party. They forced Kershaw to labor through a 29-pitch first inning in which he faced six hitters, giving up a run and three hits. And it could have been worse, with a leaping Conforto robbing Lenyn Sosa of a three-run home run at the bullpen gate in left field for the final out.

Will Smith, announced as an All-Star starter along with Freeman and Ohtani earlier in the day, got that run back with two out in the bottom of the first, lining a full-count pitch into the left-field bleachers. White Sox opener Brandon Eisert did not return for the second inning and Andy Pages greeted his replacement rudely, driving Sean Burke’s first pitch over the wall in center for his 17th homer.

The Dodgers’ lead was short-lived, however, with Chase Meidroth opening the Chicago third with a single, then trotting home on Austin Slater’s two-run homer. Chicago added another run later in the inning on a one-out double from Andrew Benintendi and an RBI single from Edgar Quero.

Kershaw and the Dodgers, however, endured and at the end of the night the team had a win and the pitcher had joined an exclusive club.

“It’s an incredible list,” Kershaw said. “I’m super, super grateful to be a part of it.”

Etc.

Before Wednesday’s game, pitchers Blake Snell and Blake Treinen threw to hitters for the first time since going on the injured list in April. Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, went on the injured list because of shoulder inflammation April 6 while Treinen has been sidelined because of forearm tightness since April 19. “They’ll go again in a couple days,” Roberts said. “But both guys looked really good.” Right-hander Tyler Glasnow, also out since April because of shoulder inflammation, is scheduled to make his third minor league rehab start for Oklahoma City on Thursday.

Staff writer Ira Gorawara contributed to this report.

Dave Roberts had some goals in mind for starting pitcher Dustin May on Thursday. And they had little to do with the final result.

“The first thing is his ability to go deeper in games,” the Dodger manager said. “The sweeper has got to be a more effective pitch. His sinker has got to be more effective.

“I know he’s working through some delivery things with the pitching coaches. I’m kind waiting to see what to expect tonight.”

May would give Roberts far more than he asked for, setting down the first 16 batters in order and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career in a 6-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.

The win was the Dodgers’ fourth in a row and ninth in their last 10 games.

The start was May’s 16th of the season and the seven innings he threw gave him 89.2 for the year, both career highs. Consistency, however, has been an issue. He won just once in June, when his 5.67 ERA was highest among Dodger starters.

His first start in July was a different story, with May (5-5) giving up just two hits and striking out nine — one shy of his career high — in seven shutout innings before tiring in the eighth.

The Dodgers needed just three batters to give the right-hander the lead with Shohei Ohtani drawing a lead-off walk, then scoring on Freddie Freeman’s one-out double into the right-field corner.

Freeman padded that lead in the third, going the other way and looping a two-run double into the left-field corner. It was Freeman’s first three-RBI game in nearly two months. When Michael Conforto followed two batters later with a two-run homer, it was 5-0 Dodgers.

And the lead could have been larger: Freeman lost a homer of his own in his next at-bat when Chicago right fielder Michael Tauchman reached a couple of rows into the right-field bleachers near the foul pole to bring his fifth-inning drive back.

Mookie Betts closed the Dodgers’ scoring with a one-out solo homer in the seventh, just his second since May 19.

May, meanwhile, was cruising, talking a perfect game into the sixth before Brooks Baldwin singled sharply to right. He took a shutout into the eighth before Baldwin ended that, too, with a two-run homer.

May got help from a couple of sterling defensive plays, with Conforto taking a hit away from Miguel Vargas with a sliding catch in left to the start the fifth and Freeman diving to his right to stab Josh Rojas’ low line drive to start the sixth.

Relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates followed May to the mound, throwing a hitless inning apiece to close out the win.

For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.

Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.

Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.

“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”

“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”

Whereas Smith was chased from the game in the fifth inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was excellent again. A week after being pulled after five innings in Denver — because of a lengthy rain delay — Roberts called on the sure-to-be All-Star to pitch with an extended leash.

Yamamoto gave up one run, a two-out RBI double to Lenyn Sosa in the fourth inning, but twirled his way through an otherwise overmatched White Sox lineup, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The right-hander tossed seven innings, gave up one run and three hits, while striking out eight, walking one and bringing his earned-run average down to 2.51.

“Any given night, a big league team can get you,” Roberts said, “and I was just happy that he was still aggressive and using the split, putting hitters away, but he’s doing what he needs to do.”

Across his last 12 innings, Yamamoto has given up just four hits.

Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting his 30th homer of the season.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“I think I’m pitching with really good form,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter after the game. “I think it’s becoming very clear what I have to do.”

White Sox first baseman Miguel Vargas — the former Dodgers top prospect who the franchise parted ways with at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman — represented the heart of the Chicago lineup, batting cleanup with his .229 batting average and 10 home runs entering the game.

Vargas, who failed to bring the power in an 0-for-4 effort, received a 2024 World Series ring from Roberts and general manager Brandon Gomes during pregame batting practice. Yamamoto set him down his first three times at the plate Tuesday.

“Yoshinobu did spectacular work today,” Shohei Ohtani told NHK, a Japanese television station, after the game.

Of more promising White Sox prospects, rookie Chase Meidroth faced a potential NL Cy Young award candidate. In the third inning, Yamamoto struck out Meidroth with a three-pitch combo: 95-mph fastball on the edge of the strike zone, a 92-mph cutter on the outside corner and a splitter down and in, forcing a swing more than a foot above where the pitch landed.

Andy Pages struck two run-scoring hits — a double and a single — en route to a two-for-four day at the plate. The 24-year-old Cuban slugger sits in sixth in the most recent NL All-Star outfielder voting, and ended Tuesday with a .294 batting average and 57 RBIs, the latter statistic being the best on the Dodgers.

“He’s earned it,” Michael Conforto, who struck the two-RBI single that capped off the four-run first, said of Pages’ All-Star candidacy. “What you may or may not see is just how hard he works… really just doesn’t seem to take days off.”

Ohtani, who was not a part of the Dodgers’ hit parade that led to their first five runs across three innings, joined the run-scoring effort in the fourth with a no-doubt solo home run — 408 feet and 116.3 mph, halfway up the right-field pavilion — off of Smith, his 30th this season. As fireworks unexpectedly shot up from the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the ninth inning — it was a reminder that Wednesday could bring fireworks on the field as Clayton Kershaw takes the mound three strikeouts away from being the 20th MLB player to reach the 3,000-strikeout milestone.

Etc.

Kopech returned to the 15-day injured list — of which he recently returned from on June 7 — with right-knee inflammation. He said before Tuesday’s game that he wasn’t sure what caused the injury, and would characterize the ailment as discomfort rather than pain.

Roberts said there isn’t a timeline for Kopech’s return, but said it was a short-term issue. The 29-year-old, who received a cortisone shot in his knee, had yet to give up a run in eight scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.

In pitchers on their way back from injuries, Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) will throw his third rehabilitation with triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday. The expectation is that Glasnow will pitch five innings/75 pitches, Roberts said.

The Dodgers manager added that Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and Blake Treinen (right forearm sprain) will throw to live hitters Wednesday, the next step in their recovery progression.

“Hopefully we’re starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Roberts said.

Next Ohtani start

Ohtani will next start on the mound Saturday against the Houston Astros — a 4:05 p.m. start — and southpaw Justin Wrobleski will again piggyback off the two-way star’s opening effort.

The Writers Guild of America West has removed Randall Emmett from its “strike list” after the film producer paid $630,000 to resolve a judgment in a long-standing dispute over unpaid compensation.

The resolution comes more than five years after Emmett’s former production firm, Emmett/Furla Oasis, failed to pay health insurance benefits and other compensation to four writers on a proposed Arnold Schwarzenegger television show, “Pump,” that collapsed in 2019 when the action star bowed out.

“This was originally a financial obligation tied to former companies,” Emmett said in a statement. “However, I made the personal decision to take it on independently because it was simply the right thing to do.”

The WGA confirmed Monday that Emmett had been taken off its strike list after nearly five years, a penalty due to his former firm’s lingering debt. But a WGA representative said members should still refrain from working with him unless he becomes a signatory to the guild’s contract with producers.

Emmett/Furla Oasis has been defunct for years. His current production firm, Convergence Entertainment Group, is trying to mount a film project in collaboration with Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese. The filmmakers hope to bring to the screen “Wall of White,” a story of a deadly 1982 avalanche near Lake Tahoe.

However, in March, the WGA warned its members to stay clear of the project, citing the unpaid debt. The WGA’s high-profile advisory clouded Emmett’s endeavors.

Emmett was the subject of a 2022 Times investigation and subsequent Hulu documentary that surfaced allegations of mistreatment of women, assistants and business partners, which he has denied.

Emmett has continued to crank out low-budget films, primarily starring John Travolta and Sylvester Stallone.

Last year, Emmett attempted to fly under the radar by using the moniker “Ives,” which is his middle name.

Emmett ran afoul of union rules in 2019 after hiring four guild writers to develop scripts for a TV series loosely based on Schwarzenegger’s early years in California.

Writers of the project previously told The Times they wanted “Pump” to be a love letter to Venice Beach in the early 1970s and the birth of the modern bodybuilding culture.

At the time, Emmett’s firm was burning through cash, according to internal documents previously viewed by The Times. The writers were also brought on board before Schwarzenegger committed to the project.

The WGA won a $541,464 judgment against Emmett/Furla Oasis in 2021 after it filed a claim on behalf of writers. The debt swelled with interest.

The “Wall of White” project draws on a 2010 book as well as a 2021 documentary, “Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche.” After a heavy spring storm in Northern California in 1982, tons of snow rushed down a mountain and into a village, trapping eight people at a ski resort. Seven died, and rescuers pulled one woman from the wreckage.

Screenwriter Petter Skavlan, a WGA member, was attached to the film, according to IMDb.

Book author Jennifer Woodlief also has been listed as a screenwriter.

Emmett has been working on the project for more than a year. He introduced the Netflix documentary to Scorsese, according to a March article in the Tahoe Guide, which touted how the local tragedy was being adapted into a feature film.

The filmmakers are searching for a director.

“We expect to finalize an A-list director by this summer in preparation for a February 1st production start,” Emmett said.

The project is expected to film in Nevada, Ohio and Canada, he said.

Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams has been ruled out of the rest of the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia with Scotland’s Ben White called up.

Williams was forced off the field with a hamstring injury after scoring a try in their 54-7 win over Western Force in Perth on Saturday.

”This is desperately sad news for Tomos,” said Lions tour manager Ieuan Evans. ”He is an exemplary Lion who had a brilliant season having joined the Tour as Premiership player-of-the-season. He lit up this Lions tour with both his personality and his talent.”

Williams’ departure means there is now only one Welshman remaining in the 38-strong squad in flanker Jac Morgan.

Bill Moyers, a soft-spoken former White House aide turned journalist who became a standard bearer of quality in TV news, died Thursday in New York. He was 91.

Moyers’ son William told the Associated Press his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital after a long illness.

Moyers began his TV career in 1971 during the early years of PBS after serving as a leading advisor and press secretary to President Johnson. He spent 10 years in two stints at CBS News in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was editor and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports,” the network’s prestigious documentary series, and an analyst for the “CBS Evening News.”

He also did a turn as a commentator on “NBC Nightly News” and was a host of the MSNBC program “Insight” in 1996.

But Moyers was often frustrated with the restraints of corporate-owned media and returned to non-commercial PBS each time.

At PBS, “Bill Moyers Journal” was the first news program on the service, launched in 1972 just as the Watergate scandal was heating up. His documentaries and series, which included “Now With Bill Moyers” and the weekly interview show “Moyers & Company, ” often examined complex issues and offered serious discussion. He earned top prizes in television journalism, including more than 30 Emmy Awards. His final program for PBS aired in 2013.

Moyers made a posthumous star out of a literature professor at Sarah Lawrence College with the landmark 1988 PBS series “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” an exploration of religious and mythological archetypes. The series was watched by 30 million viewers.

His 2006 series “Faith and Reason,” where Moyers interviewed authors about the role of religion in their lives, was the kind of programming that distinguished public television, even as audiences had more viewing options on cable.

Moyers also fronted tough investigative programs such as “The Secret Government,” a deep dive into the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration. He often focused on the influence of money in the nation’s politics.

A believer in liberal causes, Moyers aggravated Republican administrations who often cited his programs when they accused PBS of bias and attempted to cut its federal funding.

PBS President Paula Kerger, who worked closely with Moyers for decades, said he always embodied the aspirations of public television.

“Bill was always of service: as a journalist, a mentor, and a fierce champion for PBS,” Kerger said in a statement. “He fought for excellence and honesty in our public discourse, and was always willing to take on the most important issues of the day with curiosity and compassion.”

Moyers was born June 5, 1934 in Hugo, Okla., the son of a dirt farmer and day laborer. He attended high school in Marshall, Texas, where he covered sports for the local newspaper.

After graduating from the University of Texas, he earned a master’s in divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and became an ordained minister. He preached at small rural churches.

While in college, he established a relationship with Johnson, who hired him to work on his 1954 reelection campaign for U.S. Senate. He worked as a news editor for KTBC radio and television, the Austin, Texas, outlets owned by Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird.

Moyers stuck with Johnson when the senator was elected as John F. Kennedy’s vice president, becoming his personal assistant and later serving as a deputy director of the Peace Corps.

After Johnson was sworn in as president on Nov. 22, 1963, following the assassination of Kennedy, Moyers ascended as well. He was a top Johnson aide with a wide range of duties including press secretary.

According to a 1965 profile in Time magazine, Moyers was a key figure in assembling Johnson’s ambitious domestic policy initiatives known as the Great Society. He shaped legislation and edited and polished the work of Johnson’s speechwriters.

When Johnson underwent anesthesia for a gall bladder operation, Moyers was given responsibility to decide whether then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey should take over the president’s powers in the event of a crisis.

Moyers had a major impact on political communication when in 1964 he signed off on the creation of the “Daisy” ad for Johnson’s presidential election campaign.

The ad showing a girl counting petals she pulls from a daisy blends into a countdown for the launch of nuclear missile. Moyers expressed regret for the spot — an attack on Johnson’s Republican opponent Barry Goldwater’s views on the use of nuclear weapons. He believed the use of visceral imagery harmed the country’s politics in the long term.

Moyers left the Johnson White House in 1967 as he was disenchanted with the escalation of the Vietnam War. He went on to become publisher of the Long Island, N.Y., daily newspaper Newsday, raising its stature in the journalism industry, before his first tenure at PBS.

When he rejoined PBS in 1986, he formed his own production company called Public Affairs Television.

Moyers’ preacher-like delivery and emphasis on high moral standards in his commentaries led some people to criticize him as being a pious scold. But as cable news brought a more raucous style of current affairs discussions to TV, Moyers’ gentler approach was an oasis for many.

“His mission has always been to make things better, not louder,” Neil Gabler wrote in an appreciation of Moyers for The Times in 2009. “In a world of ego and bombast, he has always been modest and self-effacing.”

Moyers is survived by his wife Judith; three children, Suzanne Moyers, John D. Moyers and William Cope Moyers; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

June 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and his administration have come out in force to support his claim that last weekend’s bombing completely destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities after a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence report found the attack only set back the Islamic regime’s nuclear program by months.

During a NATO summit press conference in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump lashed out at news organizations that reported the leaked classified Defense Intelligence Agency initial assessment, leaked Tuesday, saying the reports “maligned” the pilots of the B-2 bombers that bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday night.

“It was so bad they ended the war,” Trump said. “Somebody said in a certain way, you know, that it was so devastating, actually, if you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war, too, this ended a war in a different way, but it was so devastating.”

Trump quoted a statement purportedly from the International Atomic Energy Agency that stated: “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

The White House also released the quote on its website along with comments from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Israeli officials and others commenting on the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

UPI has contacted the IAEA for confirmation.

U.S. B-2 bombers attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday night, including the underground Fordo site that was said could only be hit by U.S. bunker-buster bombs.

Following the attack, Trump said the sites were “obliterated” — an assessment undercut by a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment reported by CNN and The New York Times, that found core components of Iran’s nuclear program remained intact and that the attack only set back the Islamic regime’s nuclear program by a matter of months.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, during the same press conference, lambasted the news agencies for their reporting while describing the leaked document as having been a low-assessment report, meaning there was low-confidence in the data in the report.

“And why is there low confidence? Because all of the evidence of what was just bombed by 12 30,000 pound bombs is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated,” an irate Hegseth said. “So, if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordo, you better get a big shovel.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday also released a statement on the attack, saying, “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted attacks.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard similarly released a statement on X, stating, “New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.

“If the Iranian chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,” she said.

The United States inserted itself in the Israel-Iran war, which began June 13, when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.

Iran responded by attacking Israel.

Following the U.S. bombing, Iran attacked a U.S. base in Qatar, after which Iran and Israel agreed to a fragile cease-fire, which Trump claims was brought about by his decision to attack Iran.

The IAEA on Tuesday issued a statement saying “we have seen extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran.”

“Regarding the additional strikes to Fordow … the IAEA assesses that access roads close to the underground facility and one of its entrances were hit.”

On his Truth Social media platform, Trump on Wednesday said Hegseth is scheduled to hold an 8 a.m. EST press conference at the Pentagon “in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots,” whom he claimed were very upset about the reporting of the leaked assessment.

“The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable,” he said “Enjoy!”

BALTIMORE — The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland over an order that blocks the immediate removal of any detained immigrant who requests a court hearing.

The unusual suit filed Tuesday in Baltimore against the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland and the court’s other judges underscores the administration’s focus on immigration enforcement and ratchets up its fight with the judiciary.

At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland federal district court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition is filed.

In its suit, the Trump administration says such an automatic pause on removals violates a Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the suit says. “And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”

The suit names the U.S. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as plaintiffs.

The Maryland district court had no comment, Chief Deputy Clerk David Ciambruschini said in an email.

The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with federal judges over its deportation efforts.

One of the Maryland judges named as a defendant in Tuesday’s lawsuit, Paula Xinis, has called the administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador illegal. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked Xinis to impose fines against the administration for contempt, arguing that it ignored court orders for weeks to return him to the U.S. from El Salvador.

And on the same day the Maryland court issued its order pausing removals, a federal judge in Boston said the White House had violated a court order on deportations to third countries with a flight linked to South Sudan.

A fired Justice Department lawyer said in a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday that a top official at the agency had suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said court injunctions “designed to halt” the president’s agenda have undermined his authority since the first hours of his administration.

“The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: this pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she said in a statement announcing the lawsuit against Maryland’s district court.

The order signed by Russell says it aims to maintain existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings and access attorneys and give the government “fulsome opportunity to brief and present arguments in its defense.”

In an amended order, Russell said the court had received an influx of habeas petitions after hours that “resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete information about the location and status of the petitioners is elusive.”

The Trump administration has asked the Maryland judges to recuse themselves from the case. It wants a clerk to have a federal judge from another state hear it.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

Today we discuss presidential politics, window treatments and disasters of the natural and man-made variety.

Time for Gavin Newsom to start measuring those White House drapes.

Huh?

You know, president of the United States. I’m thinking something Earth-friendly, like recycled hemp.

Wait, what?

Did you catch the nationally televised speech the governor recently gave? The one about “democracy at a crossroads.”

I did.

It was a fine speech and the governor made some important points about President Trump’s reckless commandeering of California’s National Guard, his administration’s indiscriminate immigration raids and the wholly unnecessary dispatch of Marines to Los Angeles. (From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Venice Beach.)

Newsom was plenty justified in his anger and contempt. Trump, acting true to his flame-fanning fashion, turned what was a middling set of protests — nothing local law enforcement couldn’t handle — into yet another assault on our sorely tested Constitution.

Newsom’s speech certainly “met the moment,” to use one of his favorite phrases.

I’ll grant you that. Unlike a lot of extracurricular activities aimed at boosting his presidential prospects, Newsom was addressing a Trump-manufactured crisis unfolding right here at home. It was a moment that called for gubernatorial leadership.

Just the kind of leadership despondent Democrats need.

So it’s been said.

It’s not much of a leap to see Newsom leading the anti-Trump opposition clear to the White House!

Actually, that’s a bigger leap than it takes to clear the Grand Canyon.

Granted, Newsom’s speech received a lot of raves from Democrats across the country. Many are desperate for someone in a position of power to give voice to their blood-boiling, cranium-exploding rage against Trump and his many excesses. Newsom did a good job channeling those emotions and articulating the dangers of an imprudent president run amok.

But let’s not go overboard.

There is no lack of Democrats eager to take on Trump and become the face of the so-called resistance. There is no shortage of Democrats eyeing a 2028 bid for the White House. Those who run won’t be schlepping all the political baggage that Newsom has to tote.

Such as?

Rampant homelessness. An exploding budget deficit. Vast income inequality.

Plus, a lot of social policies that many Californians consider beneficent and broad-minded that, to put it mildly, others around the country consider much less so. Don’t get me wrong. I love California with all my heart and soul. But we have a lot of deep-seated problems and cultural idiosyncrasies that Newsom’s rivals — Democrat and Republican — would be only too happy to hang around his neck.

So let’s not get too caught up in the moment. The fundamentals of the 2028 presidential race haven’t changed based on a single — albeit well-received — speech. It’s still hard to see Democrats turning the party’s fate over to yet another nominee spawned in the liberal stew of San Francisco politics and campaigning with kooky California as a home address.

Stranger things have happened.

True.

That said, 2028 is a zillion political light years and countless news cycles away. First come the midterm elections in November 2026, giving voters their chance to weigh in on Trump and his actions. The verdict will go a long way toward shaping the dynamic in 2028.

Well at least Newsom has brought his A-game to social media. His trolling of Trump is something to behold!

Whatever.

You’re not impressed?

I think it’s best to leave the snark to professionals.

I do, however, have some sympathy for the governor. It’s not easy dealing with someone as spiteful and amoral as the nation’s ax-grinder-in-chief.

Consider, for instance, the disaster relief money that fire-devastated Southern California is counting on. Helping the region in its time of desperate need shouldn’t be remotely political, or part of some red-vs.-blue-state feud. Historically, that sort of federal aid has never been.

But this is Trump we’re dealing with.

To his credit, Newsom tried making nice in the days and weeks following the January firestorm. He ignored the president’s provocations and held what was later described an an amicable session with Trump in the Oval Office. Their working relationship seemed to be a good one.

But few things last with the transactional Trump, save for his pettiness and self-absorption. Asked last week if his “recent dust-ups” with Newsom would impact the granting of wildfire relief, Trump said, “Yeah, maybe.”

He called Newsom incompetent, trotted out more gobbledygook about raking forests and then soliloquized on the nature of personal relationships. “When you don’t like somebody, don’t respect somebody, it’s harder for that person to get money if you’re on top,” Trump said.

Yeesh.

Responding in a posting on X, Newsom correctly noted, “Sucking up to the President should not be a requirement for him to do the right thing for the American people.”

Hard to argue with that.

Yet here we are.

The nation’s second-most populous city is occupied by National Guard and Marine troops. Thousands of people — displaced by disaster, their past lives gone up in smoke — are hostage to the whims of a peevish president who always puts his feelings first and cares nothing for the greater good.

The midterm election can’t come soon enough.

Reporting from Washington — President Obama and Hillary Clinton both expressed surprise Thursday that a $400-million cash payment to Iran early this year has suddenly become an issue in the presidential campaign.

After all, Obama had publicly disclosed the payment to Iran at a White House news conference in January called to announce implementation of the historic Iran nuclear deal.

At a news conference Thursday at the Pentagon, Obama did little to hide his bemusement at having to answer questions about the payment.

“There wasn’t a secret,” he said. “We announced [it] to all of you.”

He described the money as the return of Iranian funds from a dispute dating back to the 1970s.

The administration could not send the money in dollars or send a wire transfer of funds because of U.S. sanctions, Obama said, so the money was delivered in other currencies

“We couldn’t send them a check,” he said.

The president flatly rejected allegations that the $400 million was a ransom for four Americans who were released from Iranian custody at about the same time.

The idea that the U.S. would have paid ransom “defies logic,” Obama said, and would have betrayed the families of other Americans held unjustly around the world — many of whom he has met with personally.

He took the opportunity to defend the landmark nuclear accord that the U.S.-led international coalition reached with Iran more than a year ago. The agreement has “worked exactly the way we said it was going to work,” he said.

The impetus for renewed questions about a publicly announced settlement was a Wall Street Journal account of the transaction, which revealed that the $400 million was “converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and delivered to Iran on an unmarked cargo plane,” as the paper described it.

The existence of the deal itself was indeed disclosed and reported in real time, covered by the Los Angeles Times and others.

But what’s old can still be news, especially given the pace of the modern news cycle. Put it in the midst of a presidential campaign and all bets are off.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has questioned the payment for two days.

“I woke up yesterday and I saw $400 million dollars, different currencies, they probably don’t want our currency,” Trump said Thursday in Portland, Maine. “Four hundred million dollars being flown to Iran. I mean, folks what’s going on here? What is going on?”

Trump again cited a video that he said shows an “airplane coming in and the money coming off.”

“That was given to us has to be by the Iranians,” he said. “You know why the tape was given to us? Because they want to embarrass our country. They want to embarrass our country. And they want to embarrass our president.”

But his campaign has acknowledged to CBS News that the video, in fact, shows Americans landing in Geneva, Switzerland, and wasn’t provided by Iran.

Stephen Miller, a senior policy advisor to Trump’s campaign, still insisted that “nothing less than a full investigation is required.”

“This administration has embarrassed our country as no administration has before, going so far as to fund Islamic terror through cash payments to Iran,” he said in a statement.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) raised concerns that the report confirmed suspicions that the money was paid as ransom for the release of several U.S. citizens, including journalist Jason Rezaian, held by Iran.

Iran said it was owed the money from an unfulfilled contract for U.S. fighter jets that the previous, U.S.-backed government had paid to the Pentagon. The aircraft were never delivered after the shah of Iran was deposed in the 1979 revolution.

Ryan said if it were a ransom payment, it would “mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people” to sell the international agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear development program.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest denied that the money was paid as ransom.

“The United States does not pay ransoms,” he said. “The only people who are making that suggestion are right-wingers in Iran who don’t like the deal, and Republicans in the United States that don’t like the deal.”

Clinton, who stepped down as secretary of State several years before the payment was made, bluntly described it as “old news” in an interview with a Colorado television station.

“So far as I know, it had nothing to do with any kind of hostage swap or any other tit for tat,” she said.

Republicans were only reviving the issue “because they want to continue to criticize the [nuclear] agreement, and I think they are wrong about that.”

“I have said the agreement has made the world safer, but it has to be enforced. And I’ve spoken out very strongly about how I will enforce this agreement,” she added. “I will hold the Iranians to account for even the smallest violation, and that’s exactly what I think needs to happen.”

[email protected]

For more White House coverage, follow @mikememoli on Twitter.

ALSO

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UPDATES:

3:40 p.m.: This story was updated with comments by President Obama and Donald Trump.

The first version of this post was published at 11 a.m.

Members of the Italian soccer team Juventus visited with President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.

Exactly why the gathering took place remains largely a mystery.

Six of the team’s players (Weston McKennie, Timothy Weah, Manuel Locatelli, Federico Gatti, Teun Koopmeiners and Dusan Vlahovic), their coach Igor Tudor, a handful of team executives and FIFA president Gianni Infantino stopped by hours before Juventus’ FIFA Club World Cup game against United Arab Emirates’ Al Ain that night at Audi Field.

Trump was presented with a Juventus jersey and one for next year’s World Cup, which the United States will be co-host with Canada and Mexico. But as Trump took questions from the media for about 15 minutes during the event, very little soccer was discussed.

Instead, the players stood behind him patiently — fidgeting now and then, their faces mainly expressionless — as Trump answered questions that mostly related to the potential of U.S. involvement in Israel’s war against Iran.

Later that night, speaking to a different group of reporters after his team’s 5-0 victory over Al Ain, Weah called the White House experience “a bit weird” and implied he and the other players weren’t given the option of declining the visit.

“They told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go,” said Weah, a U.S. men’s national team member whose father George is a past winner of the prestigious France Football Ballon d’Or award and was the president of Liberia from 2018-2024. “So [I] showed up.”

FIFA declined to comment. The White House and Juventus did not respond to requests for comment from The Times.

While Weah said he thought his first White House visit “was a cool experience,” he added that “I’m not one for the politics, so it wasn’t that exciting.”

“When [Trump] started talking about all the politics with Iran and everything, it’s kind of like, I just want to play football, man,” Weah said.

Fellow USMNT player McKennie had made critical comments about Trump during the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020.

Juventus players Weston McKennie, left, and Tim Weah take a selfie outside the White House after they and other team members met with President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

“I don’t think that Trump is the right one for the job as the president,” McKennie said at the time. “I think he’s ignorant. I don’t support him a bit. I don’t think he’s a man to stand by his word. In my eyes, you can call him racist.”

Still, during his introductory comments, Trump briefly singled out Weah and McKennie as “my American players” when he mentioned that night’s game.

“Good luck,” he said while shaking both of their hands in what had the potential to be an awkward moment. “I hope you guys are the two best players on the field.”

That’s not to say, however, that there weren’t any awkward moments. Because there were — none more so than when Trump brought up “men playing in women’s sports,” then looked over his right shoulder and asked: “Could a woman make your team, fellas? Tell me. You think?”

When no players answered, Trump said, “You’re being nice,” then turned to face the other direction and asked the same question.

“We have a very good women’s team,” Juventus general manager Damien Comolli replied.

Trump asked, “But they should be playing with women, right?”

When he got no response, Trump smiled and turned back toward the reporters.

“See, they’re very diplomatic,” he said.

Trump made a couple of other attempts to involve the soccer contingent in the discussion. At one point, the president used the word “stealth” when discussing U.S. military planes, then turned around and remarked, “You guys want to be stealthy tonight. You can be stealthy — you’ll never lose, right?”

The players did not seem to respond.

For the final question of the session, a reporter favorably compared Trump’s border policy to that of former President Biden and asked, “What do you attribute that success to?”

Trump looked behind him and stated, “See, that’s what I call a good question, fellas.”

Once again, the players did not appear to respond.

Duhhhh-nuh. Duhh-nuh. …

Friday marks 50 years since the 1975 film “Jaws” from Steven Spielberg introduced audiences to that infamous John Williams movie score — and the fear that they should clearly feel over the great white shark lurking just beneath their feet, waiting to chomp down on their dangling legs as they enjoy a day at the beach.

Except, over the past six decades, marine biologists like Chris Lowe at the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach have found that great white sharks and their selachian counterparts not only don’t want to eat humans but also would like to avoid us if at all possible.

“Believe it or not, a lot of the times they’re big babies. They’re big scaredy-cats,” Lowe told me.

As part of the series I’ve completed over the last year in The Wild, exploring how to react should you see a potentially dangerous animal on the trail, I spoke to Lowe, who has studied sharks for the past 35 years, about how you should react if you see a great white shark in the wild.

Lowe said that unlike 50 years ago when “Jaws” was filmed — where sharks’ populations were so low that even the “Jaws” filmmakers could barely find a shark in the ocean to record — the great white shark population has bounced back thanks to conservation efforts.

“Sharks are probably swimming by people way more often than they would ever imagine — they just don’t know they’re there,” Lowe said. “I think your chances of seeing a shark, any shark — a white shark, a leopard shark, a bull shark, a tiger shark, no matter where you go — is actually getting much better.”

Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab student assistant Julianne Santos shows Huntington Beach junior lifeguards a white shark jaw during a July 2023 presentation.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Please note that my conversation with Lowe focused on how a beachgoer should react if they see a great white shark off the coast of a Southern California beach, and I primarily asked him for tips for folks swimming or snorkeling. The Shark Lab has a great short guide for surfers, and there is other guidance available for spearfishers.

All right, no need for a bigger boat. Let’s dive in.

1. Observe the shark’s behavior

You’re swimming in the ocean, perhaps snorkeling, and you see a great white shark swimming about 20 feet from you. First, “take a deep breath and go, ‘Wow, that’s so cool,’” Lowe said.

Next, observe what the shark is doing. Is it relaxed? Has it spotted you yet?

Lowe said that oftentimes, you will see a shark because the animal wanted you to or allowed you to see it. The majority of human-shark encounters in Southern California occur without the human ever knowing it happened.

“We see it all the time from our drones — they’ll come up behind people, and in fact get what I would consider uncomfortably close to people, and then it’s almost like [they think,] ‘OK, that’s not what I thought it was,’ and then they just turn and take off,” he said.

I asked what uncomfortably close means, thinking 15 feet, 10 feet. “Three feet,” Lowe told me.

2. Keep your eye on the shark

“Let the shark know you see it,” Lowe said. “As the shark is swimming around you, you should pivot to always face the shark. That is part of this body communication that all animals use. If you’re ever threatened, do you ever turn your back on the threat?” (No.)

Move calmly and naturally as you float in the water. Do not throw anything at the shark or jerk around.

Most often, this is where the encounter ends, Lowe said. If the shark doesn’t feel threatened, you’ll observe the shark until it leaves the vicinity, and then you can alert a lifeguard of what you saw.

3. If you suddenly lose track of the shark, look behind you

You might have (even accidentally) startled the shark by moving too quickly.

When Lowe and his students go out into the ocean to tag sharks, they will pull up next to a shark and start recording it with a camera and taking other measurements. But if they startle it or if the shark feels threatened, the shark almost always loops around and tries to get behind the boat. It’ll do the same if you scare it.

People mistake this as the shark stalking them. “Actually, no,” Lowe said. “That’s how it’s investigating you safely. People forget these animals are just as much worried about their safety as we are [worried about ours].”

Researchers with the Shark Lab at the Cal State Long Beach have found that sharks and humans swim together at some California beaches more often than previously thought.

(Carlos Gauna / Cal State Long Beach)

4. Keep your distance as you keep watching the shark

If a shark feels threatened, it will arch its back and drop its fins and start an exaggerated slow-motion swimming behavior, Lowe said. “They will open their mouths, they’ll bear their teeth,” similar to an angry cat, he said.

You should, if you haven’t already, start to back away slowly from the shark, maintaining eye contact. Unlike the movies when people thrash out of the water, you want to backpedal at a normal speed. Remember, this animal is likely scared too.

Do not move toward the shark. “If you chase that shark, if you pursue it, it will break out of that behavior, and it will rush in and bite. And then it will take off,” Lowe said. “That’s a defensive response.”

5. If the shark gets in your space, bop it on the nose

Hopefully your encounter has ended by now, as this next tip is for exceedingly rare instances when a shark is getting in your space.

If you’ve been backing away from the shark, and it keeps coming toward you, getting within arm’s length, give it a “good pop to the nose,” Lowe said.

“The animal has to know you’ll defend yourself,” he said.

How hard should you strike its nose? “It’s not a little flick, it’s not a hand wave,” Lowe said. “You want the animal to know you will defend yourself because, in many cases, they are just as afraid of getting hurt as you are. A little bop on the nose quite often is enough to stop that from happening, and of course, you keep backing up. That’s the best you can do in those circumstances.”

6. If attacked, fight back with all you’ve got

If the shark bites you, you should punch it in the nostrils, eyes and gills. “There are pretty good eyewitness accounts of people fighting back, and that making a difference and then getting the shark to release. And in some cases, they don’t even see the shark after that,” Lowe said.

Most sharks bite once and leave.

Like other apex predators in California, sharks have in rare instances attacked and, in even rarer instances, killed people.

In the past 75 years, there have been about 223 shark incidents in California, with “incident” defined as a documented encounter where a shark touched a person or their surfboard, paddleboard, kayak, etc., according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Of that, at least 195 of the incidents involved white sharks. None of the 16 fatal shark incidents in California occurred in L.A. County.

These numbers feel even lower when you consider that millions of people visit California’s beaches every year.

Even with the large number of white sharks present along Southern California beaches, swimming and recreating along the coastline remains a largely safe activity, Lowe said. (In terms of risks, you’re much more likely to step on a stingray.)

I hope you will never need these tips and instead have great experiences this summer on our beautiful beaches.

I have to admit that, as someone who grew up in the landlocked state of Oklahoma, I came into this conversation with a lot of fear. It doesn’t help that my wife watches the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week every year. But after talking to Lowe, I feel about sharks like I do about bears and mountain lions. They live here too, and when we visit their homes, we could see them. More often than not, they mean us no harm and want to be left alone to live their lives — just like we do ours.

“People need to stop thinking of these animals as nothing more than these mindless animals,” Lowe said. “They are more like us than [people] think. If somebody was invading your personal spaces, you should defend yourself. You will defend yourself, whether you do it innately or not. The animals will do the same. If they feel threatened, they will protect themselves.”

3 things to do

Note: Out of concern for the safety of community members who could be targeted in ICE raids, multiple outdoors events have been postponed this week. Please check before heading out to make sure the activity you’re attending is still happening.

Visitors take a guided nature hike during an open house at the Chatsworth Nature Preserve by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in celebration of Earth Day on April 23, 2022.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

1. Hike on the longest day of the year in Chatsworth
The Chatsworth Nature Preserve will host a summer solstice event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday featuring guided hikes, storytelling, live animal exhibits and more. Guests should wear hats and comfy shoes and they should bring refillable water bottles and sunscreen. Dogs are not allowed. Visitors should enter through the Valley Circle Boulevard gate, west of Plummer Street. Learn more at ladwp.com.

2. Tend to trees near Malibu
The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains needs volunteers from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday to care for newly planted oak trees in Nicholas Flat in Leo Carrillo State Park. Participants will water, weed and mulch around newly planted trees and possibly plant acorns to replace trees that died. Volunteers will also collect data for a reforestation project. Volunteers should wear comfortable clothing and durable shoes. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Celebrate inclusivity and nature in San Dimas
L.A. County Parks and Recreation will host Pride Outside at 5 p.m. Friday at the San Dimas Canyon Nature Center (1628 N. Sycamore Canyon Road in San Dimas). The event will include a hike alongside representatives from Pomona Valley Pride, which is partnering with the county for the event. Learn more at the park’s Instagram page.

The must-read

A view of the Chuckwalla Mountains. President Biden established Chuckwalla National Monument shortly before leaving office, protecting over 600,000 acres of public lands in the California desert.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The Chuckwalla National Monument, a 624,000-acre desert landscape next to Joshua Tree National Park, faces an increased threat of losing its federal monument status after a recent ruling from the Department of Justice. Times staff writer Lila Seidman reports that a May 27 legal opinion by President Trump’s DOJ overturns a more than 80-year-old Justice Department determination that presidents can’t revoke national monuments created by their predecessors under the Antiquities Act. This opens a wide window for Trump to dismantle Chuckwalla and the Sáttítla Highlands near the Oregon border, which President Biden established as national monuments shortly before leaving office. “Whether presidents have the authority to alter monuments is hotly contested,” Seidman wrote. “Litigation challenging Trump’s previous monument reductions was still pending when Biden reversed them and the matter was never settled.” We’ll keep you posted on what happens next.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which manages more than 75,000 acres of public land around L.A. County, announced this week that it is reopening multiple hiking areas closed in response to the Palisades fire. This includes the popular Escondido Canyon Park & Falls, which I’m eager to see, and San Vicente Mountain Park. A few Wilders, who recently emailed me regarding trail closures, will be happy to hear Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park and Mandeville Canyon are reopening too. You can read more about other recent trail reopenings here.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark got hit in the eye and knocked to the ground, while also doing some shoving of her own, during a testy and physical game against the Connecticut Sun on Monday night in Indianapolis.

The Fever emerged with an 88-71 win after a game that featured a pair of skirmishes, including a fight in the final minute that led to three ejections.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Indiana coach Stephanie White blamed “bad officiating,” which she said is a league-wide issue.

“This is what happens,” White said. “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, right? And when you allow them to play physical and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete. And they’re going to have their teammates’ backs. It’s exactly what you expect out of fierce competition.

“So I started talking to the officials in the first quarter. And we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was gonna happen. So they’ve got to get control of it. They’ve got to be better.”

Things appeared to be chippy between Clark and Connecticut’s Jacy Sheldon throughout the game, with ESPN cameras showing Clark giving Sheldon a bit of a shove as the two were exchanging words during the second quarter.

Then, during a play midway through the third quarter, Clark got poked in the eye by Sheldon and responded by giving the Sun star another shove. Connecticut’s Tina Charles stepped in and wagged her finger toward Clark, then the Sun’s Marina Mabrey pushed Clark to the ground.

Sheldon was called for a flagrant 1 foul, while Clark, Mabrey and Tina Charles each received a technical foul. When Clark was asked about the technical foul during the postgame news conference, White jumped in and said she’d handle questions about the officiating.

Clark and Charles each led their teams with 20 points apiece.

Later, with less than a minute left in the game and the Fever up by 17, Sheldon made a steal and was taken down hard by Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham. A scuffle ensued, with Cunningham, Sheldon and Connecticut’s Lindsay Allen eventually being ejected.

After the game, Sun coach Rachid Meziane said Cunningham’s foul on Sheldon was “disrespectful.”

“When you are winning a game by 17 points, and you doing this … for me, [it’s] a stupid foul,” Meziane said.

Asked about the same play, White said, “It was a flagrant foul.” When pressed on whether Cunningham might have made the move in defense of Clark or the team, White simply repeated, “It was a flagrant foul.”

With the win, the Fever earned a spot in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game against the Minnesota Lynx on July 1.

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.

The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.

Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.

The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.

“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”

Trump administration spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.

The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.

The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.

Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.

Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.

Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.

A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program and Congress repealed it in 2022.

The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”

Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

Pope Leo XIV is a huge Chicago White Sox fan.

It’s a good thing too — otherwise the event being thrown in his honor at the team’s home stadium this weekend might be a little awkward.

While the White Sox play the Rangers in Texas on Saturday afternoon, the Archdiocese of Chicago will be at Rate Field celebrating the new leader of the Catholic Church — who was born and raised on the city’s South Side — with a Mass by Chicago Archbishop Blase J. Cupich and other festivities.

While the man once known as Robert Prevost won’t be there in person, he will appear in what event organizers describe as “a video message from Pope Leo XIV to the young people of the world.”

Leo will also be represented in mural form. The White Sox unveiled a graphic installation featuring his likeness on a concourse wall before a May 19 game against the Seattle Mariners, less than two weeks after Leo was selected as the first U.S.-born pope. He replaced Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at age 88.

The Chicago White Sox have commemorated the fandom of Pope Leo XIV with a graphic installation at Rate Field.

(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

The graphic was installed next to Section 140, where Leo sat in Row 19, Seat 2 for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Houston Astros. As remarkable as it might sound, there is footage from Fox’s national broadcast of that Oct. 22, that shows the man then-known as Father Bob in the stands at the stadium then-known as U.S. Cellular Field.

Hosting a World Series game for the first time since 1959, the White Sox led by two runs with one out in the top of the ninth inning. Chicago closer Bobby Jenks had just thrown a 95-mph fastball past Houston’s Adam Everett for an 0-1 count and was preparing for his next pitch.

That’s when the camera panned to a nervous-looking Father Bob, who appears to be wearing a team jacket over a team jersey.

Viewers never got to see the future pope’s reaction to what happens next, but he must have been ecstatic as Jenks strikes out Everett in two more pitches for a 5-3 Chicago win. The White Sox would go on to sweep the Astros for their first World Series win since 1917.

“That was his thing. He liked to get out and go to a game once in a while,” Louis Prevost told the Chicago Tribune of his brother, the future pope. “Eat a hot dog. Have some pizza. Like any other guy in Chicago on the South Side.”

His favorite team may have fallen on harder times since then — the White Sox are an American League-worst 23-45 and 20.5 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers in the Central Division — but Leo is still willing to put his fandom on display for the world to see.

On Wednesday, he wore a White Sox hat along with his traditional papal cassock while blessing newly married couples in St. Peter’s Square outside the Vatican.

Kelly and Gary DeStefano, who live in Haverhill, Mass., and are Boston Red Sox fans, gave him the hat. Kelly DeStefano told Boston.com they were just trying to get the new pope’s attention.

“I just wanted to make sure everyone at home knew that we did not turn on our team,” she told Boston.com. “It was all in joke and good fun.”

Chicago White Sox fans dress up like fellow White Sox fan Pope Leo XIV to watch a game against the Cubs on May 17 at Wrigley Field.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

It worked, with Boston.com reporting that Leo gave the couple a good-natured ribbing once he found out where they are from.

“You’re going to get in trouble for this,” he told them, in a video of the meeting.

“Don’t tell anyone in Massachusetts,” Kelly DeStefano replied.

While Leo might be a little too busy to attend a game anytime soon, White Sox executive vice president, chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said last month that the pope is welcome to return to Rate Field whenever he wants.

“He has an open invite to throw out a first pitch,” Boyer said. “Heck, maybe we’ll let him get an at-bat.”

WASHINGTON — Immigration agents have arrested 330 immigrants in Los Angeles and surrounding regions of Southern California since Friday, the White House confirmed Wednesday.

The numbers came from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who also slammed Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, saying they — President Trump — “fanned the flames” of violence in Los Angeles.

The “area of responsibility” for the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Central Coast, as well as Orange County to the south, Riverside County to the east and up the coast to San Luis Obispo County.

During a press briefing, Leavitt said 157 people have also been arrested on assault and obstruction-related charges. That includes a man charged Wednesday with the attempted murder of a police officer for throwing a Molotov cocktail. Overall, Leavitt said that 113, or about a third, of those detained had prior criminal convictions.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have touted the arrests of specific individuals in recent days, including people from Vietnam, Mexico and the Philippines who had previously been convicted of crimes, such as second-degree murder, rape and child molestation.

Leavitt condemned the protests in Los Angeles against raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“These attacks were aimed not just at law enforcement, but at American culture and society itself,” she said. “Rioters burned American flags, chanted death to ICE and spray-painted anti-American slogans on buildings.”

Echoing sentiments Trump has relayed, Leavitt criticized Newsom and Bass, branding them as radical Democrats.

Bass, she said, “embarked on one of the most outrageous campaigns of lies this country has ever seen from an elected official, blaming President Trump and brave law enforcement officers for the violence.”

“The mob violence is being stomped out,” she said. “Criminals responsible will be swiftly brought to justice, and the Trump administration’s operations to arrest illegal aliens are continuing unabated.”

But Trump’s top border policy advisor, Tom Homan, told NBC on Tuesday that the protests in Los Angeles are making immigration enforcement “difficult” and more “dangerous.”

Leavitt issued a stark warning to protesters in other cities.

“Let this be an unequivocal message to left-wing radicals in other parts of the country who are thinking about copycatting the violence in an effort to stop this administration’s mass deportation efforts: You will not succeed,” she said.

SAN DIEGO — Major League Baseball does not have a mercy rule for ending games early.

On Tuesday night at Petco Park, the Dodgers could have used one.

In recent years, the club has punted on plenty of games in the interest of protecting their often injury-riddled and shorthanded pitching staffs. But in an 11-1 loss to the San Diego Padres, they took the act of de facto forfeiture to levels even they hadn’t previously pioneered.

First, they let minor league call-up Matt Sauer wear it — in every sense of the phrase — over a nine-run, 13-hit, 111-pitch outing.

Then, in the face of a nine-run deficit in the bottom of the sixth, they sent position player Kiké Hernández to the mound to pitch the rest of the game, the earliest a true position player had ever taken the mound in a contest in Dodgers franchise history.

“Very awkward,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t feel good.”

The Dodgers’ decision to pack, even before the seventh-inning stretch, it in was rooted in logic.

They are currently operating with only four healthy starting pitchers. Their equally banged-up bullpen is leading the majors in innings, and was coming off five frames of work in an extra-inning win the night before. And by the time Hernández took the mound in the sixth, the game had long been lost, the Padres (38-28) teeing off on Sauer with three runs two-out runs in the third inning, single scores in the fourth and fifth, and a four-spot in the sixth.

“I know that my job is just eat as many as I can,” said Sauer, who entered the game as a bulk man in the second inning after opener Lou Trivino tossed a scoreless first. “Obviously, today, didn’t have as good of stuff, but I felt like I was just out there pitching my ass off, trying to compete and trying to eat as many innings as I could for the bullpen.”

On the other side, Padres ace Dylan Cease mowed down the Dodgers, giving up three hits while striking out 11 batters over seven scoreless innings.

“We had a couple chances early,” Roberts said. “But I think when the game got away, you could just see things flip.”

Thus, the Dodgers (40-28) quickly turned their attention to Wednesday’s series rubber-match, one they will have to win to maintain sole possession of first place in the National League West.

Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández were removed from the game after the top of the sixth.

And knowing Wednesday’s starter will be left-hander Justin Wrobleski, who has a 7.20 ERA in three big-league outings this year and has spent much of the campaign in triple-A, Roberts decided not to waste any of his other available relievers on the latter innings either, inserting Hernández as pitcher the moment the Padres pushed their lead past eight runs with two out in the bottom of the frame (MLB rules prevent losing teams from using position players on the mound until they face an eight-run deficit).

“You just got to look at where our ‘pen is at, and appreciating what we have the next couple days, it wasn’t smart to chase and redline guys,” Roberts said. “A guy that was available tonight, [Michael] Kopech, I’m not going to pitch him down six or 7-0 in the sixth inning, to then not have him available tomorrow. As the rules are, we abided. That’s kind of what you do to essentially move forward and win the ensuing games.”

Still, a position player taking the mound in the sixth inning to finish off a blowout loss represented an almost unprecedented use of the tactic; one that has become so popular among MLB clubs in recent years that the league had to put in the eight-run restriction for when teams can do it.

Two years ago, the Cleveland Guardians had David Fry pitch four innings at the end of a rout against the Minnesota Twins, the first time a true position player had pitched at least three innings in a game since 1988, according to USA Today.

In 2018, the Arizona Diamondbacks used two position players for the final 4 ⅔ innings of a lopsided defeat at Coors Field to the Colorado Rockies.

Hernández’s 2 ⅓ innings (in which he gave up two runs, three hits and two walks) marked the longest pitching outing by a true position player in Dodgers history.

“Again, it’s about do you want to chase? And is it worth it versus [trying] to win tomorrow?” Roberts said. “I think those are things are part of the math … The goal was to come in here to win a series, and we got a really good chance to do that tomorrow.”

Given how Tuesday went, they better hope so. Because if not, their 10-run loss will be an embarrassment without much of a reward.

A breathtaking UK beach has been named a firm contender for Spain’s sandy shores thanks to its beautiful setting and crystal-clear waters

The UK may not always be able to rival the sun-soaked weather you’ll find in Spain, but our coastline is definitely giving the holiday hotspot a run for its money.

In fact, there’s one breathtaking UK beach that’s been hailed as a competitor to Spanish shores, thanks to its pristine white sands, turquoise waters and picture-perfect surroundings that wouldn’t be out of place on a postcard. Throw in the plethora of nearby hotels, restaurants and bars, and it’s not difficult to see why Porthcurno Beach in Cornwall is such a hit with Brits planning a staycation.

The National Trust site gets its white sands from the soft shells that form its shores, while the crystal-clear waters and freshwater stream make it a must-visit on those hot summer days. Wildlife fans may also want to keep their eyes peeled for the variety of birds that call the region home, not to mention you can even spot basking sharks and dolphins between May and October.

The travel experts at Holidaycottages.co.uk have named it as one of their go-to ‘dupes’ for Spain, explaining: “If you’re looking for a beach in the UK that offers white sand, dramatic cliffs, turquoise waters and lush greenery similar to the Costa Brava in north-east Spain, then head to Porthcurno Beach in Cornwall.

“Reminiscent of a tropical paradise, the beach is framed by towering cliffs, providing a peaceful retreat from the wind, and a scenic backdrop that enhances its secluded and calm atmosphere. Lastly, the beach’s clear waters make it ideal for swimming, snorkelling, and exploring marine life.”

Over on Tripadvisor, visitors have plenty of positive reviews of the shoreline, although a few have warned that the nearby car park can fill up quickly so you may want to have a few alternatives in your back pocket if you are planning to visit. “What a lovely beach,” wrote one happy holidaymaker. “Fairly small bay with clean sand. It has quite a steep drop off so isn’t great for children playing in the surf. It has toilets, a cafe and car park very close.”

Another added: “A must do on your trip to Cornwall. Parking is difficult so plan ahead. The sea positively sparkles in the sunlight. It’s one of the most picturesque spots on the island.”

For one holidaymaker, even some bad luck with the weather couldn’t affect the beauty of the area. They wrote: “Just stunning. One of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. First time at Porthcurno and will definitely be returning. Just hope it doesn’t rain this time.”

Meanwhile, fans of the hit TV show Poldark may also recognise the spectacular coastline, as it served as a filming location. According to the National Trust, it doubled up as Nampara Cove in the first season, as well as the second series where it provided the backdrop for a dream sequence in which Demelza and Ross enjoy a stroll.

There’s plenty to see and do in the area too. One major highlight has to be the iconic Minack Theatre, a unique outdoor theatre that’s built into the cliffs and overlooks sea, making for some seriously Instagram-worthy views. Meanwhile hikers may want to don their sturdy boots and take on one of the countless trails along the cliffs; the South West Coastal Path passes through the region if you’re looking to tick it off the bucket list!

Do you have a story to tell us? Email us at [email protected].

UFC president Dana White says he cannot stop Jon Jones from retiring, despite the American having “agreed” to fight Tom Aspinall.

White was responding to the social media activity of the UFC heavyweight champion, who suggested he was retired before calling out ex-UFC fighter Francis Ngannou.

Speaking at the UFC 316 post-fight news conference, White said 37-year-old Jones had said nothing about retiring to him and that he was only interested in matching him with Aspinall.

“Tom Aspinall is the guy. If the guy wants to retire and doesn’t want to fight, there’s nothing you can do,” White said.

“I didn’t want Khabib [Nurmagomedov] to retire, I thought [Daniel Cormier] should’ve stayed in it longer, so it’s none of my business.

“I’ll do what I can to make the fight, if we can, if he’s talking that crazy, I didn’t realise that.”

With Ngannou fuelling speculation he might be open to a return to the UFC, White played down the chances even if it was to fight Jones.

“It’s Aspinall’s fight,” White said.