DOJ announces charges against five men for alleged plot to attack UFC White House event
The justice department has announced charges against five men for an alleged plot to carry out an attack to kill government officials and others attending the UFC “Freedom 250” event held at the White House last Sunday.
Earlier we reported that the FBI had launched an investigation into the plot and identified a group of five conspirators who procured weapons and made plans to carry out the alleged attack. The FBI made arrests over the weekend in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, and California.
“The FBI, our law enforcement partners and our U.S. Attorneys did what they do every day to make America Safe through quick response and vigilance in investigating, disrupting, and dismantling this alleged plan before it could be carried out,” said acting attorney general Todd Blanche. “We will take immediate and aggressive action to identify and prosecute those who incite and plan acts of violence.”
In a press release, the DOJ said that according to the charges, the five men allegedly planned to deploy drones armed with explosives in and around the UFC event in order to force an evacuation and then planned to deploy snipers to fire upon “high value targets” within the fleeing crowd.
Key events
The day so far
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Donald Trump laid into Benjamin Netanyahu, telling a news conference at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains that the Israeli prime minister “has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon”. In unusually frank remarks, the president appeared to acknowledge that Israel has been killing many civilians in its attacks on Lebanon, which it claims are targeting only Hezbollah. More on that here.
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Trump also said that he would send the deal with Iran to Congress for a review. “I like the idea, send it to Congress please, I mean who wouldn’t approve it,” he said in France. The absence of the details of the memorandum of understanding with Iran has led to bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill about what the agreement might contain and how favorable the terms are to the US. Republican lawmakers say they want Trump to provide more information, with some expressing skepticism that the deal can deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.
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Trump also said he had a “very good meeting” with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the G7 summit. He said that Iran would soon be “in the rearview mirror” and that he would would do “whatever I can” to urge Vladimir Putin to make a deal to end the war. European leaders at the summit also urged Trump to try to break the deadlock by taking up the proposal for him to host talks in the US between Zelenskyy and Putin.
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The Trump administration announced the further dismantling of the Department of Education, moving oversight of special education and civil rights to other agencies. While the department can only be closed with congressional approval, Trump’s education secretary Linda McMahon has formed agreements with other federal agencies to siphon off much of the department’s work.
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Vice-president JD Vance attempted to walk back Trump’s “I love the inflation” comment in an interview on ABC’s The View. “What he said was, I love the inflation because it’s going to come down once the war is over,” Vance said.
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The panel also challenged Vance over the administration’s policies targeting black history in public spaces, the dismantling of black voter districts and the sidelining of people of color. The grilling left Vance on the backfoot as he appeared on the show to to promote his new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. More here and here.
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And finally, Donald Trump’s $14.2m bid to turn the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool from what the president described as a “filthy” and “dirty” site into a “beautiful” monument with “American flag blue” water was thwarted by the proliferation of algae amid the warm weather in DC, which turned the water green again. The administration promptly blamed Obama for the pesky algal blooms (though I doubt the former president can take credit for what is, essentially, photosynthesis).
Trump says Netanyahu has to be more ‘responsible’ in Lebanon, acknowledging that Israel is killing many civilians
Speaking at the G7 summit in France earlier today, Donald Trump laid into Benjamin Netanyahu, telling a news conference that the Israeli prime minister “has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon”.
In unusually frank remarks, the president appeared to acknowledge that Israel has been killing many civilians in its attacks on Lebanon, which it claims are targeting only Hezbollah.
Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.
Trump said he also didn’t like that Israel had attacked the Lebanese capital of Beirut – not the “southern side” – shortly before the deal with Iran was signed. “I did not like that, I let them know that,” he said.
“If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, he’ll do the job, Syria will do the job,” Trump added, referring to the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, with whom he has a good relationship.
“I’ve had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon,” Trump said.
Here’s the clip.
A group of Democratic senators and one Republican, as well as two Democratic House committees, sent letters yesterday to the National Science Foundation asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network, with House lawmakers going further and accusing the agency of acting illegally.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386m. Over the last decade it has tracked ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run another 15 to 20 years.
The National Science Foundation had directed the removal of most of the system’s instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027 – a decision scientists said came with no warning and no scientific review. The independent federal agency, which was established by Congress, described the move not as a cancellation but as a “descoping” aligned with a strategy to prioritize “evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies”. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget had included a 55% cut to the agency.
“It just seems like this is supreme stupidity and a violation of the fundamental distribution of powers in our constitution,” Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator of Oregon, told the Associated Press. “This program is authorized, it’s funded, and for the administration to shut it down without direction from Congress violates that vision in which the people’s representatives decide what’s done and funded, and the executive branch executes that vision.”
Merkley and the Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, co-led the letter , which was also signed by Democratic senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Ron Wyden of Oregon. It urged the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to halt the dismantling of the Ocean Observatories Initiative and conduct a thorough review, including consultation with the marine science community, before any further action is taken.
“Eliminating most of this complex ocean monitoring system threatens the safety of our coastal communities while undermining our nation’s ability to monitor coastal environments, marine currents, and extreme weather events,” the senators wrote.
In a sharper rebuke, Democrats from the House science, space and technology committee and the House natural resources committee sent a joint letter demanding the agency “cease this expensive, destructive, and – crucially – illegal action at once”. The letter was led by Zoe Lofgren and Jared Huffman, representatives of California, the top Democrats on their respective committees and was signed by 23 Democratic members from each panel.
Trump further guts education department by shifting oversight of more programs away from agency
The Trump administration announced today the further dismantling of the Department of Education, moving oversight of special education and civil rights to other agencies.
The Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, while the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education. The Department of Justice also will take over work protecting student privacy and will provide some training and advisory help to schools.
In a letter obtained by NPR, the education department’s Kim Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights, and Kim Rogers, the acting assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services, said the shifts are part of an administration commitment to end “micromanagement”.
Trump campaigned on a promise to shut down the education department, saying he would “move education back to the states where it belongs”.
While the department can only be closed with congressional approval, Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, a billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has formed agreements with other federal agencies to siphon off much of the department’s work.
Vance attempts to walk back Trump’s ‘I love the inflation’ comment
Challenged by Ana Navarro on Donald Trump’s recent comments in which he said “I love the inflation”, JD Vance replied: “What he said, Ana, is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over, that’s what he said.”
Whoopi Goldberg and others on the panel immediately clapped back, telling Vance “that’s not what he said.”
“Are you his interpreter or his vice-president?” Joy Behar chimed in.
“What he said was, I love the inflation because it’s going to come down once the war is over,” Vance reiterated.
Vance also disputed that Trump had called affordability a “hoax”, arguing that the president was referring to the idea that the Republicans caused the affordability problem as a hoax.
Co-host Ana Navarro joined the discussion about race by adding that of the 6,668 refugees accepted into the US this past year, only three were not white South Africans.
“I’m very skeptical of those numbers because we have a lot of different immigration pathways in the United States of America,” JD Vance responded (this is according to data from the state department’s bureau of population).
Vance attempted to respond to the original question from Whoopi Goldberg: “You say that we’re anti-minority,” Vance said.
“No, I didn’t say that, I asked,” Goldberg responded, cutting him off.
Vance eventually answered that “Black history is not erased from public spaces” before talking about the Trump administration had focused on improving crime statistics in Washington DC, a majority Black city.
“The book is actually way less political than you might think if you were just watching this,” Vance said during the interview.
JD Vance challenged on race, immigration and the Epstein files on ABC’s The View
Vice president JD Vance went on ABC’s The View this morning to promote his new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith – and the show’s six cohosts used the opportunity to grill him on everything from race, immigration and the Epstein files.
“What did Black people do to this administration that has allowed it to really stigmatize folks of color?” cohost Whoopi Goldberg asked, specifically bringing up the Trump administration’s removal of Black history and memorials from government spaces.
The audience loudly groaned when the vice president responded: “What exactly are you talking about?”
Co-host Sunni Hostin then jumped into the fray. “I’m talking about Black history getting erased from public spaces, Black voter districts are being dismantled, Black leaders are being sidelined from our ranks. Where do Americans of color fit in this vision? Because it doesn’t seem like we fit,” Hostin said, as the audience applauded.
The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran will be signed on Friday in Bürgenstock, not Geneva, as was previously expected.
The location was proposed by Pakistan, Qatar, Iran, and the US, the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement. The mountainside resort overlooking Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland is difficult to access and therefore easily secured. It is owned by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.
Trump’s $14.2m bid to clean DC reflecting pool appears to fail as water turns green again
Callum Jones
Donald Trump’s $14.2m bid to turn the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool from what the US president described as a “filthy” and “dirty” site into a “beautiful” monument has encountered a hitch.
The water is green again.
Days after the renovation was finished, algae has frustrated Trump’s attempt to transform the shade of the pool to “American flag blue” in time for the country’s 250th birthday.
The reflecting pool – one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic attractions, and the scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech – has been one element of Trump’s efforts to recondition the country’s capital during his second presidency.
A no-bid contract to waterproof and repaint the site, which dates back over a century, raised eyebrows. It was awarded to a Virginia-based company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which had previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of the president’s golf clubs.
The administration had claimed “residual” algae would be cleared in the immediate aftermath of the renovation. But it has proliferated amid warm weather.
The US Department of the Interior has claimed in recent days that the installation of a water treatment system which a spokesperson described as “nanobubbler technology” would help address the algae issue.
“The nanobubbler technology has successfully destroyed the algae bloom that has plagued every pool reopening since 1922,” a spokesperson told the Guardian on Tuesday. The spokesperson claimed the pool had been “broken and disgusting” days after a project that took place while Barack Obama was president.
“Now, due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” the spokesperson added. “We thank President Trump for fixing the reflecting pool for good.”
In a 5 June post on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed the renovation he ordered of the reflecting pool would stand the test of time. “This was not a paint job,” he said. “This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people.”
Administration officials have repeatedly claimed that other presidents tried and failed in years gone by to beautify the pool with “extremely costly” projects.
While Trump initially put the cost of this latest effort at about $1.8m, it quickly rose beyond $14m.
National Park Service employees were seen using skimmers yesterday in a bid to clean algae from the reflecting pool and return to it to the intended hue.
JD Vance is also due to appear on ABC’s The View at the top of the hour. I’ll bring you any key lines from that interview here.
Then, in an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” this morning, JD Vance insisted that the only investment Iran would get under the deal would be mostly from Gulf states – namely Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
“Not a single cent of American money goes to Iran, not $300bn, not $24bn, not any of the money, the dollar figures that I’ve seen floating around,” Vance said.
US officials told reporters yesterday that the memorandum of understanding includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds, sanctions relief and a $300bn fund to help rebuild Iran if Tehran meets certain benchmarks. But, again, the document has not been released and likely won’t be before Friday.
Vance had told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last night that the Iranians “wouldn’t get a dime” unless they changed their behavior, and later clarified that they would not get any US taxpayer dollars – it would be paid for by neighbouring Gulf states.
“What the agreement does say, Sean, is if the Iranians behave and if there are sanctions relief and if the Iranians are integrated into the world economy, we would invite other countries, not us, but other countries to invest in their country,” the vice-president said.
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