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Day: June 9, 2025

Los Angeles immigration protest clashes: What’s the latest and what’s next?

Los Angeles immigration protest clashes: What’s the latest and what’s next?

Los Angeles has witnessed a third night of protests against the immigration crackdown by United States President Donald Trump’s administration. The administration’s decision to deploy the national guard has widened the rift between Republicans and Democrats, including the leadership of California. And now, the Trump administration has indicated that it might send US marines in to help quell the protests. That scenario would mirror the events of 1992 when marines were deployed alongside the national guard for law enforcement in Los Angeles during riots that followed the acquittal of four policemen filmed beating Rodney King, a Black man. What is the latest from the protests? On Sunday, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) declared the protests in downtown LA an “unlawful assembly”. “You are to leave the Downtown Area immediately,” the LAPD said in a post on X. One group of protesters shut down a major thoroughfare in central Los Angeles, the 101 Freeway. The LAPD wrote that the freeway was shut down “due to demonstrators throwing objects onto the SB [San Bernardino] lanes of the 101 Freeway and damaging multiple police vehicles”. Advertisement The protest also spilled over to San Francisco, where protesters rallied in solidarity with those in Los Angeles outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building. San Francisco police declared this an unlawful assembly and arrested about 60 people. On Saturday, Trump deployed about 2,000 national guard soldiers to Los Angeles despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. What is unlawful assembly? Legally, an unlawful assembly refers to an intentional meeting of three or more people that disrupts public peace. Why are there protests in LA? The protests began on Friday night after ICE officials arrested 44 people for violating immigration laws. The US Department of Homeland Security later said ICE officials had arrested a total of 118 immigrants who did not have the required documents to stay in the US. Uniformed ICE agents went through the city in caravans of unmarked military-style vehicles to make the arrests. The protests sprung up as a response to these operations. Crowds of demonstrators gathered outside a facility where some of the detainees were believed to be held. Where are the Los Angeles protests? The protests are largely taking place in downtown Los Angeles, where protesters spray-painted anti-ICE slogans on the walls of the Edward R Roybal Federal Building. Which agencies are now involved? ICE was the agency leading the immigration arrests. After protests broke out on Friday, the LAPD was called in to quell civil unrest. Advertisement Police Chief Jim McDonnell said at a news conference on Sunday that in recent days, many protests in the city have been peaceful. “However, when peaceful demonstrations devolve into acts of vandalism or violence, especially violence directed at innocent people, law enforcement officers and others, we must respond firmly.” On Saturday, Trump ordered the deployment of at least 2,000 national guard soldiers to Los Angeles County. Newsom asked Trump to rescind this order. “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved,” he wrote. “This is a serious breach of state sovereignty – inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed.” Bass described Trump’s deployment of the national guard in Los Angeles as “a chaotic escalation”. Could the marines be deployed next? The US military’s Northern Command issued a statement on Sunday saying about 500 marines are in a “prepared to deploy status” and they are ready to assist the Department of Defense. “The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in an X post on Sunday. Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked. There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job. The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE. https://t.co/KVjvvnaL70 — Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) June 8, 2025 Other Republicans have echoed Hegseth’s sentiments. “One of our core principles is maintaining peace through strength. We do that on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as well. I don’t think that’s heavy-handed,” Mike Johnson, speaker of the US House of Representatives, told ABC News. Advertisement In an X post on Sunday, Newsom described Hegseth’s threat to deploy the Marines as “deranged behavior”. How many people have been arrested? At least 10 people were arrested during the protests on Sunday, LAPD Captain Raul Jovel said at the news conference. However, he added that this number was “fluid and preliminary” and arrests were ongoing. On Saturday, 29 people were arrested, according to McDonnell. Jovel said three officers were injured in the clashes. He added that the injuries were not significant enough for the officers to be transported to hospital. What’s happening to Waymo in Los Angeles? The protesters have also vandalised and set ablaze several self-driving cars that belong to the ride-hailing company Waymo. Los Angeles media outlets reported that protesters spray-painted anti-ICE messages on multiple self-driving cars lined up between Arcadia and Alameda streets in Los Angeles. On Sunday in a post on X, the LAPD advised against visiting the area. What are Trump administration officials saying? In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump criticised Newsom and Bass, both Democrats. In one post on Sunday, he wrote: “Governor Gavin Newscum and ‘Mayor’ Bass should apologise to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in an X post: “A message to the LA rioters: you will not stop us or slow us down. @ICEgov will continue to enforce the law.” A message to the LA rioters: you will not stop us or slow us down. @ICEgov will continue to enforce the law. And if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest

Russia hits Ukraine with record 479-drone strike ahead of POW swap

Russia hits Ukraine with record 479-drone strike ahead of POW swap

Russia has launched 479 drones against Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the three-year war, according to the Ukrainian air force. The air force said early on Monday that it had downed 460 drones as well as 19 missiles launched overnight. Russia’s continued to step up its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, despite declaring, under pressure from United States President Donald Trump, that it is interested in pursuing peace talks. The record launch came just ahead of the start of a prisoner swap agreed at recent talks between the pair. Of the hundreds of projectiles fired at numerous targets, only 10 reached their destination, Kyiv officials said. One person was reported injured. Russia’s escalation of aerial attacks has been matched by a renewed battlefield push in the eastern and northeastern parts of the roughly 1,000km (621-mile) front line in occupied parts of Ukraine. The onslaught follows a secretive Ukrainian drone attack that damaged several Russian bombers parked at airbases deep inside the country in what was an embarrassment for the Kremlin and, according to Kyiv, a palpable hit on its ability to strike across the border with missiles. Advertisement Russia’s Ministry of Defence said one target of Kyiv’s strike was the Dubno airbase in Ukraine’s Rivne region, which hosts tactical aviation aircraft. The mayor of the western city of Rivne, Oleksandr Tretyak, said the overnight drone launch was “the largest attack” on his region since the start of the war. Prisoner swap Late on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded that in some areas targeted by the Russian offensive, “the situation is very difficult”. However, he provided no details. Ukraine is shorthanded on the front line against its bigger enemy and needs further military support from its Western partners, especially air defences. However, uncertainty about the US policy has led to doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Two recent rounds of direct peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul have yielded no breakthroughs beyond pledges to swap thousands of prisoners, including dead and seriously wounded soldiers. Since the agreement, believed to concern an exchange of around 1,200 prisoners by each, was struck last week, the pair has accused one another of failing to meet their obligations. However, the first batch of POWs was repatriated on Monday afternoon. “Today’s exchange has begun. It will be done in several stages in the coming days,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app. “Among those we are bringing back now are the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25,” he added. The Russian defence ministry also said the first exchange had been carried out. It did not say how many prisoners had been swapped, but did note that the numbers on each side matched. Advertisement The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces shot down 49 Ukrainian drones overnight over seven Russian regions. Two drones hit a plant specialising in electronic warfare equipment in the Chuvashia region, located more than 600km (373 miles) east of Moscow, officials reported. Since the beginning of the war in 2022, Russia has targeted both military and civilian areas of Ukraine with Shahed drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. However, Russia claims it attacks only military targets. Alexander Gusev, head of Russia’s Voronezh region, said 25 drones had been shot down there overnight, damaging a gas pipeline and sparking a small fire. The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces also claimed that its special operations troops struck two Russian jets stationed at the Savasleyka airfield in Russia’s Novgorod region, located some 650km (404 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The statement did not say how the planes were struck. Adblock test (Why?)

‘Homeland would’ve been stolen’: AK Natives sound off on Biden energy bans as Trump officials tour tundra

‘Homeland would’ve been stolen’: AK Natives sound off on Biden energy bans as Trump officials tour tundra

FIRST ON FOX: Alaska Natives and residents of the vast North Slope Borough communities along the Arctic Ocean got a rare chance this week to directly discuss their concerns with White House officials, typically 3,500 miles away in Washington. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin joined Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and local residents in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) as part of a multi-day visit to the oil and gas fields, workers and neighbors in the frigid but crucial region. Charles Lamp, a Native resident of Kaktovik – the main remote community within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) a few hundred miles eastward – said until President Donald Trump and the officials assembled in Utqiagvik took office, North Slope residents and their energy development hopes felt besieged by that same far-flung federal government. Lamp voiced similar concerns to those Fox News Digital had been told in the past by Alaska officials, in that environmental activists in the Lower 48 and federal officials who ideologically align with them have tried speaking for them in opposition to developing ANWR and other sites where none of those same activists live. ALASKA SENATOR LITERALLY TEARS UP BIDEN’S ENERGY ORDERS, BOOSTS WH EFFORTS TO LEVERAGE ARCTIC LNG IN ASIA TRADE “There’s one thing that I want to bring up – we were under attack in Kaktovik by environmental groups,” Lamp said. “On Day 1, President Trump told the Fish and Wildlife Department to deny their requests. And that was such an amazing thing for us to be able to see. And we were so proud of our president then because he made sure that our ancestral homelands weren’t going to be stolen – and [instead] protected,” Lamp said, as many in the North Slope actually support the development of their Native homelands versus cordoning them off through regulation – as they bring jobs and resources. AK CAN BE ‘CURE TO THE NATION’S ILLS’ WITH HELP FROM TRUMP ADMIN: GOV DUNLEAVY “So I really need to bring back this immense gratitude to President Trump for that action and being able to write something that, if the other guy (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) would have won, there’s no doubt in my mind that our homeland would have been stolen and there’s nothing we could have done about it,” he said. “Trump had the heart and the wherewithal to be able to right this wrong.” He told Burgum to invite Trump to Kaktovik to see ANWR and its “Section 1002” – the oil and gas development sector – for himself. Burgum said he believes Trump would be open to the opportunity – and that the president has already pleasantly surprised regional corporate stakeholders with his openness to questions that the oil companies felt loath to even consider asking a president. AK LAWMAKERS CLAIM VICTOR AS FEDS BEGIN REVERSAL OF ‘ILLEGAL’ BIDEN RULE RESTRICTING ANWR OIL, GAS “President Trump does care super deeply about this and at a deep level,” Burgum said, adding the president shocked ConocoPhillips representatives in a recent meeting when he asked what they needed to improve their North Slope operations. When the company noted improved roads would be helpful, Trump asked rhetorically why a road couldn’t be built, according to Burgum.  “[They] were kind of like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know we could ask that.’” Wright also addressed the Utqiagvik meeting, and added in separate comments that he visited the Prudhoe Bay Discovery Well – a 1960s operation that first opened Alaska to energy development and at one point represented one-quarter of U.S. oil output. “Unfortunately, the last few decades have seen a long, slow decline of North Slope oil production – not because they’re running out of oil. In fact, there’s an amazing amount of untapped, unproduced oil up here. It’s because of federal regulation, bureaucracy. It’s made it so expensive and difficult to operate,” Wright said. He added that with the “Big, Beautiful, Twin Natural Gas Pipeline” ultimately constructed, Alaska could be the key to global energy security by drawing buyers in Korea and Japan away from China. “It’s great to be part of history again here in the great North Slope oil fields of Alaska,” Wright said. Dunleavy last week headlined a global sustainable energy conference in Anchorage, which also drew the attention of those same potential stakeholders from Asia.

Trump travel ban blocking citizens from 12 countries takes effect

Trump travel ban blocking citizens from 12 countries takes effect

President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 African, Middle Eastern and South American countries went into effect on Monday. The ban, signed last week, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don’t hold a valid visa. The order does not cancel visas that have already been issued to citizens of the countries, and those who possess them will remain free to travel to the U.S. SUSPECT IN BOULDER TERROR ATTACK DETERMINED TO BE EGYPTIAN MAN IN US ILLEGALLY: FBI The president said on X the travel ban was being introduced after a terror attack against a pro-Israel group advocating for Hamas to release Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last weekend, allegedly by an Egyptian man who had overstayed his visa. In a White House fact sheet, Trump said, “We will restore the travel ban, some people call it the Trump travel ban, and keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country.” This point was backed by the State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, Tommy Pigott. In a briefing last week, Pigott said, “This is a national security imperative.” “We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States,” Trump said before signing the ban. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya and numerous others,” he concluded. “We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm, and nothing will stop us from keeping America safe.” Fox News’ Paul Tilsley and the Associated Press contributed to this report.