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Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’ Relationship between Vladimir Putin and traditional ally has slowly unravelled under current PM Nikol Pashinyan https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/06/russia-putin-armenia-election?

If you were drafted during the American Civil War, you could legally pay someone else $300 to go in your place. James

Access to Closely Guarded Secrets View in browser On January 6, 2021, 19-year-old Elias Irizarry was among the members of a violent mob that broke into the U.S. Capitol and attempted to overturn the recent presidential election. He was convicted of trespassing on government grounds, and videos from that day show him entering through a window with a metal pole in his hand. Now he may have access to sensitive national-security information as an employee of the Department of Defense. As part of his deal with then-President Biden’s Justice Department, Irizarry pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and was sentenced to 14 days in jail. But as with almost all of the other January 6ers, he was fully pardoned on Donald Trump’s return to office last year. The Washington Post reported this week that Irizarry, now 25, works at the Pentagon’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office. He’s been tasked with guarding the country against terrorist threats—but he himself participated in an attack on the U.S. government just over five years ago. His trajectory aligns with Trump’s ongoing effort to reframe the January 6 insurrectionists as “patriots” acting in support of a righteous cause, and reflects the White House’s tendency to reward illegal actions performed in the service of the president and his agenda. At the time of the riot, Irizarry was a freshman at the Citadel, a public military college in South Carolina. He was suspended from school after his guilty plea; after he apologized for his involvement in the riot at his 2023 sentencing, he reapplied and was accepted. The judge even wrote him a recommendation letter. Irizarry ran for Congress in 2024, and his campaign website explained that he’d “truly seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of America.” (He lost in the Republican primary, although he did capture 28 percent of the vote.) But does the fact that Irizarry apologized, and that a DOD spokesperson says that he believes Irizarry is qualified, mean that he should have access to the nation’s most closely guarded secrets? Part of the reason government jobs are so coveted is that many careers in public service are rewarded with stability, pensions, and other benefits. These positions can come with immense responsibility—and although it’s unclear what Irizarry’s motivations are for taking this particular role, his hiring is part of a concerning trend. He isn’t the first January 6 defendant to hold a position in the Trump administration: Jared Wise, who was caught on tape encouraging insurrectionists to “kill” Capitol Police officers, was until recently an employee of the Department of Justice. He resigned because he believed that he couldn’t “fully expose the abuses by the FBI and DOJ against J6 defendants” from within the federal government. A former FBI agent himself, Wise was hired specifically for the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, which was formed to investigate supposed abuses of prosecutorial power during the Biden administration. (My colleague Quinta Jurecic has argued that the project has unintentionally thrown light on the Trump administration’s own abuses.) One major concern over Irizarry’s job: his security clearance. All positions in the Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office require top-secret clearance, according to The Washington Post, which is typically granted only after a rigorous vetting process. (The Pentagon did not respond to my questions about the specifics of Irizarry’s role.) In part because Americans with security clearances can be targets for foreign agents, they’re routinely advised to watch for “insider threats”—red flags among co-workers who could potentially mishandle classified information, voluntarily or under duress. One of those tells, as my colleague Tom Nichols has written, is hostility to the U.S. government. Prosecutors alleged that, in the months after January 6, Irizarry sent texts to another rioter about potentially joining Russia’s military if America’s wouldn’t accept him. The Trump administration is still trying to paper over the history of January 6. In November of last year, Trump also announced mostly symbolic pardons for the election deniers who plotted to keep him in office. A month later, Trump pardoned Tina Peters, the Colorado county clerk who was convicted of election interference in 2024. The order didn’t carry legal signifiance—convicted only at the state level, Peters was technically beyond the president’s reach—but eventually, Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, did what Trump couldn’t, commuting Peters’s prison sentence. Immediately following her release, she went on Steve Bannon’s podcast and suggested that she was jailed for exposing a Democratic plot to steal the election. The decision to pardon those involved in January 6, and to give some of the insurrectionists jobs in government, sends the message that crimes can be forgiven as long as they serve the aims of those in power. Government agencies cultivate public trust in part by demonstrating that they’re hiring the right people; not so long ago, Irizarry would have been an active security risk. In this administration, loyalty is the qualification that matters most. Related: Donald Trump wants you to forget this happened. Republican leaders once thought January 6 was “tragic.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra advances to general election in race for California governor SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Democrat Xavier Becerra advanced to the general election for California governor Friday after pitching himself as an experienced choice to lead the nation’s most populous state and succeed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. https://apnews.com/article/california-governor-election-primary-2026-98b2b4dcca6813c3ffeb9754bd09805d?

Stocks slump as Big Tech sinks and a strong May jobs report boosts odds for higher interest rates The U.S. stock market had its worst day since October Friday as a sell-off in big technology companies weighed down the broader market and a strong jobs report boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will be forced to hike interest rates at some point this year. https://apnews.com/article/stocks-markets-iran-oil-trump-b5e10863b81cb1d6399f688ad8885c46?

World Cup turf When the tournament starts next week, the players will have their eyes on the ball. John Trey Rogers will be focused on the grass beneath their feet, which took him six years to get just right.

Gloves come off Big banks aren’t pulling any punches in their fight with the crypto industry — Jamie Dimon just described a fellow financier as “full of sh*t.” With regulation coming up for a Senate vote, the long-simmering tensions are boiling over.

Space station leak Five astronauts were forced to seek shelter aboard a spacecraft attached to the International Space Station as their crewmates attempted to repair a leak. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the situation does not pose a safety threat.

💼 The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, while the unemployment rate held at 4.3%, confirming that the economy is gaining momentum despite the economic fallout from the Iran war, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

Trump's team convenes nuclear experts President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn., yesterday for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Axios' Barak Ravid and Colin Demarest have learned. ☢️ Why it matters: The White House is trying to reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war and begin in-depth nuclear negotiations, and wants to have experts at the ready should those talks be launched. 🇺🇸🇮🇷 The U.S. and Iran are still at odds on several details of the MOU, according to U.S. officials and regional sources involved in the mediation. The sources characterized the negotiations as in their final stretch, but it remains unclear whether agreement will ultimately be reached. A U.S. official told Axios: "This meeting in Oak Ridge doesn't mean that a deal is going to happen, but it is a sign that the negotiations are in a very serious phase and that there is a good chance to get it done, and we want to be prepared." The intrigue: Axios was alerted yesterday that Witkoff had made an unannounced trip to eastern Tennessee. Two U.S. officials later confirmed he and Kushner were visiting Energy Department facilities at Oak Ridge. Some of the country's foremost experts in uranium processing and centrifuge technology are based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex. The White House and the National Nuclear Security Administration declined to comment. 👀 What to watch: U.S. officials say the White House has been getting positive indications from the Iran negotiators but believe there are internal divisions in Tehran over how to proceed.

🎁 Johnson's bonus points Values show the Democratic gain needed in every district to reach 218 seats. Data: Axios analysis of data from The Downballot, MIT Election Lab and Dave's Redistricting App; Chart: Andrew Pantazi/Axios Republican-led states have redrawn enough congressional districts to force Democrats to outperform their 2024 national results by nearly 5 percentage points if they want to retake the majority in the 2026 midterms. Why it matters: Speaker Mike Johnson's majority has been on a razor edge for years. But the math from redistricting gives him just a little more buffer. Democrats need to flip three seats to win the House, assuming vacancies return to the parties that last held them. Democrats have an almost 6-point advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot as of today, according to polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne. By the numbers: Harris carried 205 House districts before redistricting but would win just 200 under the new maps. Democrats need 218 to win a majority. Trump beat Harris by 1.5 points nationally. She needed a roughly 3.4-point national margin to carry a majority of districts. Across the 10 states that redistricted, Democrats held 80 seats in 2024 to Republicans' 101. Just to hold that ground, Democrats would need to outrun Harris' margin by 10.5 points. Yes, but: The pro-Republican tilt is real, but not historically extreme. Harvard Law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos tells us the current GOP skew is "not remotely as bad" as the post-2010 maps, when Republicans' aggressive gerrymanders met few Democratic offsets. In 2012, Democrats needed about a 5.6-point national win to control the House. The median district backed Romney by 1.7 points even as Obama won nationally by 3.9. The bottom line: Candidate quality, turnout, money, scandals and the national mood still decide races, but pro-GOP redistricting gives Republicans a head start. — Andrew Pantazi

😬 Tanked by Trump Senate Majority Leader John Thune accused Democrats of taking a "terribly irresponsible position" by voting against a FISA extension, but he'll still need their help to pass legislation next week. ‼️ Why it matters: The Senate's struggle to extend FISA is increasingly tied to President Trump's decision to name FHFA director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. Republican senators have openly questioned Pulte's qualifications, but they have spent the week arguing that his appointment should be kept separate from the debate over FISA reauthorization. Democrats have brushed aside Thune's warnings that blocking an extension is a "really risky strategy." "We'll take another run at it. We're gonna need some help from Democrats, obviously," Thune told reporters. Section 702 surveillance authorities could lapse next week. The Senate has so far failed to pass a reauthorization measure, and some House Republicans have little interest in another short-term extension. 🛟 Zoom in: Thune suggested that rescuing FISA may require help not only from Democrats, but also from the White House. Trump's declaration that Pulte is not his permanent choice for DNI has done little to ease Democratic concerns about his appointment. Thune said Pulte's role is "something the administration will have to consider" and "Democrats will have to think about." "But next week it gets real," he said. 🛑 Between the lines: Even if GOP leaders find a way to get Democrats on board, Speaker Mike Johnson still faces resistance from his own members. Concessions, like a three-year central bank digital currency ban, haven't been enough to satisfy conservatives, who want harsher warrant requirements. Johnson likely won't have the two-thirds support needed to move the bill under suspension, and some on his right flank are already threatening the rule vote. What's next: GOP leaders are viewing another short-term extension of the program as an increasingly likely outcome. It would be Congress' third extension of the program, a prospect that's testing the patience of some House Republicans. "We grow weary of these short-term extensions," Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) told us. — Hans Nichols and Kate Santaliz

A federal judge strikes down Trump administration immigration policy affecting 39 countries BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday struck down a Trump administration policy enacted after the shooting of two National Guard members that made it harder for immigrants from dozens of countries to stay and enter the U.S. https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-asylum-citizenship-10591d120e5cb13da736d9eeb06757c8?

A few years ago, a tornado ripped through our small town. From the air, its trail of twisted tree trunks and roofless houses could be followed for miles. The damage was not confined to the initial scar: puffs of insulation and other trash were left hanging from trees and power lines, metal roofing wrapped around fence posts. Whole stands of trees had to be bulldozed and trucked away because toxic substances could not be untangled from the branches. https://atoday.org/direct-hits-and-secondary-damage-from-child-sexual-molestation/

Virginia man gets life in prison for double murder scheme in affair with au pair FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man who was having an affair with the family’s au pair was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole for the murder of his wife and a man who was lured to the couple’s home as a fall guy. https://apnews.com/article/au-pair-affair-murder-sentence-brendan-banfield-b28c0b8d57a0faac3a7264b210b86e63?

Trump Lawyers Make Stunning Refusal in $10B Court Battle The president is unwilling to prove the core allegation in one of his lawsuits. Donald Trump’s lawyers are refusing to hand over any financial information about the president as part of his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC. Trump is suing the publicly funded British broadcaster, claiming it defamed him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” editing two parts of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech to make it seem as though he had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol. The complaint focuses on a segment of the BBC’s Panorama program, which spliced together Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell, if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore,” despite the two remarks actually being made nearly an hour apart. Even though the president is seeking $10 billion in damages over claims that the BBC program damaged “the value of his brand, properties and businesses,” Trump’s lawyers have not handed over any documents to prove it, the Financial Times reported. As part of the discovery process, the BBC subpoenaed the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which holds the president’s business interests and assets, in order to determine the financial impact of the Panorama documentary, which first aired in October 2024. Court filings from the trust’s legal team, which also represents Trump in the suit, said it had made “multiple objections” to requests for financial documents, accusing the BBC of carrying out a “fishing expedition” and arguing “that, as a non-party, it need not substantively respond.” Trump’s legal team also said the 30-day timeline sought by the BBC to produce “tens of thousands of documents from hundreds of non-parties” was “unreasonable” and “improper,” according to the filing seen by the Financial Times. The BBC said there “appears to be a flat refusal” by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust—which is managed by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.—to provide any “financial information under subpoena,” despite arguing that the BBC damaged “the value of his brand, properties, and businesses.” According to the FT, Trump has not turned over any documentation as part of his $10 billion lawsuit, whereas the BBC has produced more than 45,000 documents during discovery. The BBC has apologized to Trump for the editing of the Panorama documentary but has called for the suit to be dismissed. The broadcaster’s legal team argued that, because Trump won the 2024 election soon after the program aired, he “cannot plausibly claim that the documentary harmed his reputation.”In previous court submissions, the BBC noted that more than 100 defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot told courts that they interpreted Trump’s speech as a “call to action.” In a statement to the FT, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said the BBC must be held liable for “intentionally and maliciously defaming” the president by “distorting and manipulating his speech.” “No amount of attempted legal maneuvers can change that fact,” the spokesperson added. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable the BBC and all those who traffic in fake news.” The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in February 2027 if the BBC’s motion to dismiss is unsuccessful. The Daily Beast has contacted Trump’s legal team and the BBC’s legal team for comment. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-lawyers-make-stunning-refusal-in-10b-court-battle/?

What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About the Turmoil at ‘60 Minutes’ Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you might say. This column is being republished with permission from its original home on Substack. For more from Chris Cillizza, subscribe here. News that CBS anchor Scott Pelley had slammed new “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton—and CBS News boss Bari Weiss—in an all-hands meeting earlier this week landed like, well, a bombshell report from the long-running news show itself. The New York Times described it as an “extraordinary exchange,” with Pelley questioning Bilton’s qualifications and alleging that Weiss was intent on “murdering” ‘60 Minutes’ entirely. Pelley was subsequently fired by the network. The reaction among the media class was immediate—and almost entirely unified: Pelley was a hero. He was standing up to the attempts by Weiss and Bilton to turn ‘60 Minutes’ and, more broadly, CBS, into an arm of the Trump administration. Social media was quickly filled with encomiums to Pelley and his “courage.” The narrative was set: Pelley is standing up for capital “J” journalism, which Bilton and Weiss are actively trying to destroy in the name of kissing Donald Trump’s ass. (David Ellison, who owns CBS News and its parent company Paramount, is friendly with President Donald Trump and he has, since having taken over the network, at a minimum, moved aggressively to be less openly confrontational with the president.) But that rush to crown Pelley is not only misguided, I’d argue—and it totally misses the real point here. Before I make my case, let me offer a few caveats: I do not know Pelley, Weiss or Bilton. I truly have no rooting interest here. I am also a giant fan of ‘60 Minutes.” My parents watched it every Sunday night when I was a kid. Since I got into journalism, my admiration for what they do has only grown. And yes, ‘60 Minutes’ is, by all accounts, a bright spot in the CBS News universe. Its most recent season averaged more than 9 million viewers—a 9% increase over the previous year. (Though, of course, the question of whether CBS News makes money for the broader network is more complicated.) Oh, and I am not trying to get a job at CBS either. I love my life as an independent journalist. I just re-signed my contributor deal at NewsNation. If CBS offered me a job tomorrow, I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—take it! But here’s the thing: I don’t think Pelley is a hero. Nor do I agree with those screaming that any attempt to change ‘60 Minutes’ is proof positive that Bilton or Weiss is trying to “murder” it. Pelley has every right to voice his dissatisfaction with the decision by Weiss to jettison the show’s former executive producer (as well as a decent chunk of the staff) in order to bring in Bilton and a new regime. But is an all-hands meeting really the time and place to do it? Especially considering this reporting from CNN’s Brian Stelter, which claims Weiss and Bilton had sought a private meeting with Pelley, and he turned them down. Seen in the most pro-Pelley light, his choice to confront Bilton and Weiss in an all-hands gathering was a way to make his point as big and brightly as possible. Huddling behind closed doors with the bosses wouldn’t properly convey his upset over the restructuring. But what if Pelley chose to do his “truth to power” thing not in hopes of actually changing anything but rather as a way to make it as performative as possible—in a content age in which performative emotion is absolute gold? I mean, you can’t blast both your immediate boss and your big boss and expect to keep your job. And I would assume Pelley knew that going in! The immediate leak of the audio of Pelley’s remarks to seemingly every media reporter suggests to me that this latter—and admittedly more cynical—explanation has real plausibility. Then there’s the core of Pelley’s criticism of Bilton and Weiss: That they don’t have sufficient “broadcast news” experience to do the job well/right. There is no doubt that neither Weiss nor Bilton has the sort of resume that people who have traditionally held these roles at networks have possessed. They haven’t spent their lives in the world of TV production. And, at times, that’s shown—like when CBS News didn’t get its evening news anchor, Tony Doukopil, a visa to get into China to cover Trump’s visit there. But there is also no doubt that broadcast news—and cable TV news—is a dying product. The average age of a CBS News viewer is 62! NBC News is 57. ABC News is a “youthful” 55. That’s a problem. Because unless science figures out a way to get us all to live until we are 150, the reality is that the main clientele for what CBS News is offering—yes, including ‘60 Minutes’ — is, quite literally, dying off. Which is why I found myself vigorously nodding my head to the defense Bilton offered on Monday amid the Pelley barrage: “Broadcast is an ice cube that is melting.” No one—presumably not even Pelley—thinks that the solution to what ails big media is more of the same. Yes, ‘60 Minutes’ still works! But for how long? Doesn’t it make sense to look at your flagship products and ask, “How are we going to make this product continue to work amid massive disruption in how people want to consume content?” To me, the answer is very obvious. Which is why Pelley’s criticism rings false. If I was Ellison—or anyone who owns a legacy media brand—I would want people in the decision-making room who aren’t old hands. No amount of expertise in how to make great-looking broadcast TV shows or put together a whiz-bang front page of the print newspaper is going to reverse the steep decline of people who consume their content that way. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you throw the baby out with the bathwater. CBS News still needs to make broadcast TV! You can’t get rid of everyone who is an expert in that space. But, again, the fact that neither Weiss nor Bilton has experience in making TV seems to me more an asset than a detriment. CBS News (and every other legacy outlet) has to figure out new ways to reach people on new platforms. Why not have people—like Weiss!—who has done that? The changes in how people consume content and the sort of content they want to consume is fundamental. It’s never going back to the way it was. That sort of massive change requires a re-examination of how we do everything. My personal writing hero, Stephen King, said it best in his amazing book “On Writing”: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” We’ve reached the “kill your darlings” stage of legacy media. Now the only question is what we do about it. And doing the same old things—or slight variations on the same old things—ain’t going to work. https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-everyone-is-getting-wrong-about-the-turmoil-at-60-minutes/?

Whistleblower Exposes Trump Goons’ Jaw-Dropping Social Security Plot The plan involved exploiting a database known as the “Death Master File.” A Trump administration whistleblower says officials plotted to declare 2.7 million living individuals dead to push immigrants out of the country. The scheme would have used the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) “Death Master File,” a database that flags the deceased, to wipe people off the financial grid, cutting off their pay, bank accounts, credit and benefits, the Washington Post reports. Tech broligarch Elon Musk, who spearheaded the Trump administration’s controversial cost-cutting DOGE initiative last year, had pushed to bend the agency’s records to President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, the newspaper notes. The SSA had separately marked 6,100 immigrants as dead last year in an earlier, smaller push. Jeremiah Schofield, a career official at the SSA who helped run the agency’s IT modernization before leaving in October, said the plans crystallized on a single conference call last year. A DOGE official, he said, laid out the goal bluntly: pile on enough hardship that immigrants either fled the country or walked into a field office for help and got arrested. Schofield described it as “one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” and has now detailed the plan in a 49-page disclosure to the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, reviewed by the Post. The Department of Homeland Security allegedly handed the list of 2.7 million names over to SSA in late April 2025. Schofield pulled a sample of 25 to check it and found many were, in fact, alive. The group turned up U.S. citizens, green card holders, teens, and elderly people, including a widow receiving survivor benefits. He said he could not confirm the alleged links to crime or terrorism that the DHS had cited in its materials. The agency’s own attorneys had cautioned that wrongly listing the living as deceased risked breaking federal law. Schofield said he declined to take part. The SSA says the plan was never executed. A spokesperson said the agency “did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File.” Three DOGE members—Antonio Gracias, Jon Koval and Payton Rehling—turned up at the agency’s Maryland headquarters that February and called themselves volunteers, Schofield said. Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Gracias, told the Post that his client knew nothing of the proposal to declare 2.7 million people deceased. Koval and Rehling did not reply to the Post. The effort traced to two April 2025 memos from then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to then-acting commissioner Leland Dudek. Dudek told the Post he had heard the legal warnings and rebranded the file by trading the label “death” for “ineligible”—“death is a state of ineligibility,” he reasoned. The disclosure has infuriated Senate Democrats. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called it “an illegal attempt by DOGE to weaponize Social Security,” and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the episode showed an administration intent on making people suffer, immigrants most of all. Both have now sent letters to the SSA and to the trio of ex-DOGE officials. A DHS spokeswoman did not address the plan but defended sharing data between agencies. White House spokeswoman Liz Huston sidestepped the questions, instead promoting a Trump tax break for seniors. “President Trump will always protect and strengthen Social Security,” Huston told the Daily Beast. “President Trump proudly delivered No Tax on Social Security for nearly every senior in America despite every single Democrat in Congress voting against it.” The administration acknowledged in court papers last month that it had revoked DOGE’s data access at the start of the year and would not be reinstating it. The Daily Beast contacted the DHS and the SSA for comment. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the government is finally doing what it should have all along—sharing information across the federal government to solve problems,” a DHS spokesman said. “Biden not only allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood into our country, but he lost them through incompetence and improper processing. “Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.” The SSA did not immediately respond. https://www.thedailybeast.com/whistleblower-exposes-how-trump-admin-plotted-to-mark-27-million-living-social-security-recipients-as-dead/?

Trump Wins Fight to Blow $125 Million on ‘Dumbest Thing Ever’ Republicans have given Trump a symbolic trophy. Republicans have handed President Trump a win in one of his more eyebrow-raising vanity projects, a push to rename the Pentagon that Democrats say will cost up to $125 million and accomplish absolutely nothing. The House Armed Services Committee voted along party lines to permanently rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, tucking the measure into the annual defense policy bill during a marathon late-night session. The move codifies an executive order Trump signed last fall, resurrecting a name the U.S. military bureaucracy last used in the 1940s. Representative Adam Smith, of Washington and the committee’s top Democrat, was forthright in his assessment of the effort. “One of the dumbest things that has been done by this administration,” he said. “It’s semantic nonsense at a time when we have a lot of substantive arguments.” The amendment was introduced by Republican Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, a hard-line Trump ally, who framed the rebrand in soaring terms. “Restoring the name Department of War sends an unmistakable signal to the world,” Jackson said. “Deterrence only works when adversaries believe America is willing to fight and win to secure its interests.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has already taken to calling himself secretary of war, celebrated the vote on social media. “The Department of War will officially be restored soon,” he posted. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a full renaming could run as high as $125 million—a number that landed badly with Democrats already furious over the bill’s $1 trillion overall price tag and what they described as a lack of meaningful guardrails around the nearly 100-day war with Iran. Democrat Representative Pat Ryan of New York, one of a dozen Democrats who voted against the broader bill, did not mince words. “It’s performative bulls--t,” he said. “I think ending on that performative note summed up the whole situation.” The broader National Defense Authorization Act—now carrying the renaming provision—cleared the committee in a bipartisan 44-12 vote, though the dozen Democratic no votes made it the panel’s most partisan such vote in years. The name change still faces a steep climb. The Pentagon’s legal name remains the Department of Defense until both chambers of Congress sign off, and the Senate—where Democratic votes are needed to advance most legislation—is expected to resist. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wins-fight-to-blow-125-million-on-dumbest-thing-ever/? ps:So pathetic!!!!!

Rare Shell Seal Shows Moon Imagery in Israel Mother-of-pearl seal found at Iron Age Tel Hadid https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/rare-shell-seal-shows-moon-imagery-in-israel/?

🎉 Yahoo! It's Friday! You made it. In today's edition: Carolina's comeback, Longhorns repeat as softball champs, quarters come to soccer, Judge lands on IL, NBA mock draft, Ohtani breaking baseball (again), and more. Yahoo Sports AM is written by Kendall Baker and Jeff Tracy. Let's sports...   🚨 ICYMI HEADLINES 🥎 Longhorns go back-to-back: Texas beat Texas Tech, 4-1, on Thursday to complete the sweep and win its second straight softball national championship. It's the same result as last year, with the mighty Longhorns once again besting the Red Raiders' multimillion dollar roster full of superstar transfers. ⚾️ Judge lands on IL: In a brutal blow for the Yankees, Aaron Judge will be out for the foreseeable future after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his rib. The three-time MVP will be re-examined in 4-6 weeks, and "is expected to return at some point this season." 🎾 Last two standing: The women's French Open final is appropriately historic for this rollercoaster of a Grand Slam, with 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva — the first person born after 2004 to reach a major final — set to face 114th-ranked Maja Chwalińska, the second qualifier ever to reach a major final (Emma Raducanu, 2021 U.S. Open). 🏀 Trump at MSG: President Trump confirmed that he will attend at least one of next week's games at Madison Square Garden, which will make him the first sitting U.S. president to attend the NBA Finals. 🏀 Miles sets record: Lynx guard Olivia Miles set a WNBA rookie record with eight 3-pointers made in Thursday's win over the Valkyries. The ROY frontrunner put up a 28-4-7 line to lead first-place Minnesota (8-2) to its sixth straight win.   🏆 STANLEY CUP FINAL CANES STORM BACK TO EVEN SERIES (Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images) In Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, the Golden Knights stormed back to win. On Thursday, it was Carolina's turn to stage a series-shifting comeback. ICYMI: The Canes trailed 2-0 in the third period before scoring three goals in five minutes to revitalize the home crowd. A tip from Vegas' Mark Stone in the final seconds sent the game to overtime, where Seth Jarvis found the back of the net to play the hero and even the series. Final score: Hurricanes 4, Golden Knights 3 (OT). Controversial call: The Canes' third goal in regulation came on a power play in the final five minutes, after a challenge from Vegas head coach John Tortorella led to a delay of game penalty. The challenge was on a controversial no-goal call, with referees ruling that goaltender interference was enough to erase a Golden Knights goal. Historic start: The Hurricanes are the first team since the 1944 Canadiens to win a Cup Final game after trailing by multiple goals in the final 10 minutes of regulation. This is also the first Stanley Cup Final in history to be tied 1-1 with both teams having a multi-goal comeback win. Are you not entertained?! Tune back in on Saturday night for Game 3 in Las Vegas. Judging by how this series has gone so far, we should be in for another thriller.   ⚽️ PRESS PAUSE STARTS AND STOPS: GAME BREAKS COME TO SOCCER (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images) If you watched soccer last weekend, you likely witnessed the growing familiarity of a previously foreign concept: hydration breaks. The new normal: A sport once known for its 45-minute halves, uninterrupted by commercial interests or talking heads, has buckled with increasing regularity to mid-half stoppages. Though first implemented as a weather-dependent protocol to spare players from extreme heat, the breaks have extended their reach further into a game typically resistant to change. Just last weekend: The Champions League Final featured cooling breaks in both halves, despite temperatures in Budapest sitting in the mid-70s at kickoff. Mauricio Pochettino used a first-half cooling break to create one of the year's great sports memes, gathering USMNT players around his MacBook for tactical instruction. Starts and stops: Regardless of weather conditions, every match in the upcoming World Cup will feature hydration breaks in each half, spanning exactly three minutes from whistle to whistle. Get ready to learn quarters, world! Poch’s laptop moment evokes the NBA's whiteboard, much to purists' chagrin. (Screenshot: TNT Sports) Cooling or commercials? FIFA will reportedly allow broadcasters to show commercials during the World Cup breaks, with some caveats, per The Athletic. For example: Ads can't start within 20 seconds of the referee's whistle, and they must end more than 30 seconds before the game restarts. As of two weeks ago, conversations between Fox and FIFA about the inclusion of advertisements were still ongoing. Between the lines: The break-creep also changes the tactical complexion of a match, giving teams an opportunity to huddle up and talk X's and O's. Managers once relied on an unreliable game of telephone to install new instructions mid-half. Now, they can adjust with great specificity as players congregate for water. Perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of the breaks is the clock, which will continue running despite the firm three-minute period of inaction. The officials will add those minutes to the stoppage time at the end of each half. Bottom line: Just as NFL RedZone is no longer seven hours of commercial-free football, futbol is no longer enjoyed 45 minutes of uninterrupted action at a time. Inevitably, the gradual normalization of breaks will create opportunity for incremental advertising over time, further commercializing a sport whose fans are loath to witness the transition. This story was written by Dylan Dittrich, author of our upcoming Sports Business newsletter, which launches soon. Want in? Email dylan.dittrich@yahooinc.com with the subject line "I'm in."   🏀 CLASS OF 2026 NBA MOCK DRAFT 7.0 (Amy Monks/Yahoo Sports) With the NBA Finals upon us and the draft less than three weeks away (June 23-24), here's our latest two-round mock, courtesy of Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor. Top 10: Wizards: AJ Dybantsa (BYU) Jazz: Darryn Peterson (Kansas) Grizzlies: Cameron Boozer (Duke) Bulls: Caleb Wilson (North Carolina) Clippers: Mikel Brown Jr. (Louisville) Nets: Nate Ament (Tennessee) Kings: Darius Acuff Jr. (Arkansas) Hawks: Keaton Wagler (Illinois) Mavericks: Brayden Burries (Arizona) Bucks: Kingston Flemings (Houston) Be sure to check out our 2026 NBA Draft Guide, which features full scouting reports for our top 60 prospects, player comparisons, and multiple big boards.   ⚾️ SHO-TIME OHTANI'S BREAKING BASEBALL (AGAIN) (Christian Petersen/Getty Images) Shohei Ohtani has already amassed 5.2 wins above replacement this season, which is more than all but 30 players had last year. As a reminder: There are still four months left in the season!!! As a hitter, he's shaken off a cold start (by his standards) to get back to his usual offensive prowess, batting .301/.420/.521 with 10 HR, 14 2B, 33 RBI and 41 R. His .420 OBP leads the NL and his .941 OPS ranks third. As a pitcher, he's 6-2 with a 0.74 ERA, which is the third-lowest through 10 starts of a season in MLB history. He's just two innings shy of qualifying for the ERA leaderboard, which he would otherwise top by nearly three-quarters of a run (Cristopher Sánchez, 1.46). Chasing the Babe: In 1923, Babe Ruth amassed a career-high 14.1 WAR, marking the only time in MLB history that someone eclipsed 13 WAR (per Baseball Reference). Ohtani's current pace? 13.6. Game on.   📺 VIEWING GUIDE WEEKEND WATCHLIST (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) 🏀 NBA Finals, Game 2 The New York Buzzsaws — er, Knicks — go for their 13th consecutive win tonight in San Antonio (8:30pm ET, ABC), where the Spurs will try to salvage a split at home before the series heads to the Big Apple. Flashback: This is the first time the Knicks have led in the NBA Finals since going up 3-2 on the Rockets on June 17, 1994 — the day of O.J. Simpson's infamous white Bronco chase. 🏒 Stanley Cup Final, Game 3 The Hurricanes and Golden Knights are tied at one game apiece as the series heads to Las Vegas tomorrow night (8pm, ABC). Road warriors: Carolina has yet to lose on the road in these playoffs (6-0), and a victory tomorrow would make them just the fifth team in NHL history to win their first seven away games in a single postseason. 🎾 French Open The action concludes this weekend at Roland Garros, starting with No. 2 Alexander Zverev vs. No. 26 Jakub Menšík in today's first men's semifinal (8:30am, TNT/HBO Max) and No. 10 Flavio Cobolli vs. Matteo Arnaldi in the second (1pm). Tomorrow, it's No. 8 Mirra Andreeva vs. Maja Chwalińska in the women’s final (9am), followed by the men's final on Sunday (9am). First-time champs: No matter who wins, this year's French Open will be just the second Grand Slam in the last 20 years to crown a first-time major champion in both the men's and women's draws, the other being the 2021 U.S. Open (Daniil Medvedev and Emma Raducanu). ⛳️ U.S. Women's Open The LPGA's second major of the year continues at famed Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles (Fri-Sun, Peacock/USA/NBC), where 156 players are competing for a women's golf record $12.5 million purse. Leaderboard: American Jennifer Kupcho (-5) holds a one-stroke lead after the opening round. World No. 1 Nelly Korda and No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul both struggled, each shooting a two-over 73. ⚾️ NCAA Baseball Super Regionals The Sweet 16 gets underway today, as eight best-of-three series hosted by the higher seed will determine who advances to the College World Series. Four of the series start today, while the other four start tomorrow. Underdogs everywhere: How chaotic were the Regionals? Just two of the Supers are between seeded teams, with No. 3 Georgia hosting No. 14 Mississippi State (Sat. 11am, ESPN) and No. 6 Texas hosting No. 11 Oregon (Sat. 8pm, ESPN). The other six series: Cal Poly at No. 16 West Virginia, Little Rock at Troy, USC at No. 5 UNC, Ole Miss at No. 4 Auburn, Oklahoma at No. 15 Kansas and St. John's at No. 7 Alabama. More to watch: 🇺🇸 Friendlies: USMNT vs. Germany (Sat. 2:30pm, TBS); Brazil vs. USWNT (Sat. 5:30pm, TBS) … The men play their final World Cup tuneup in Chicago, while the women head to São Paulo for a two-game series. 🐎 Horse Racing: Belmont Stakes (Sat. 7:04pm, Fox) … The 158th Test of the Champion closes out the 2026 Triple Crown season. 🏎️ Formula 1: Monaco Grand Prix (Sun. 9am, Apple) … Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli goes for his fifth straight victory at the most prestigious event on the F1 calendar. 🏈 UFL Playoffs: DC Defenders at Orlando Storm (Sun. 3pm, ABC); Louisville Kings at St. Louis Battlehawks (Sun. 6pm, Fox) … Winners meet in next week's championship. ⛳️ PGA: The Memorial (Fri-Sun, ESPN+/Golf/CBS) … Four players are tied for the lead (-5) at Muirfield. ⚾️ MLB: Guardians at Rangers (Fri. 8pm, Apple); Royals at Twins (Fri. 8pm, Apple); Nationals at Diamondbacks (Sun. 3:15pm, Peacock); Giants at Cubs (Sun. 8:30pm, NBC) 🏀 WNBA: Wings at Sparks (Fri. 10pm, ION); Storm at Lynx (Sat. 1pm, ABC); Valkyries at Aces (Sat. 3pm, ABC); Fever at Liberty (Sat. 8pm, CBS) Plus: 🥍 PLL Week 4 in Charlotte (Fri-Sat, ESPN+); 🏁 NASCAR in Michigan (Sun. 3pm, Prime); IndyCar in St. Louis (Sun. 9pm, Fox); ⛳️ LIV Golf Andalucia (Fri-Sun, FS1); 🏈 IFL Week 13 (Sat-Sun, Yahoo Sports TV) Got plans this weekend? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city.   🐎 31 LENGTHS HORSE RACING TRIVIA (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images) With the 158th Belmont Stakes set for tomorrow, let's take a moment to flashback to the greatest race ever run. Question: What year did Secretariat complete his Triple Crown with a 31-length victory at the Belmont? A) 1981 1978 C) 1973 D) 1969 Answer at the bottom.   🏎️ START YOUR ENGINES YAHOO SPORTS x APPLE TV (Apple) This weekend's Formula 1 Louis Vuitton Monaco Grand Prix 2026 continues our season-long partnership with Apple TV for F1 coverage. Tune in: Today's practice sessions (7:30am/11am ET) and tomorrow's qualifying (10am) will both air for free on Yahoo Sports, while Sunday's race will stream on Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula 1.   Trivia answer: C) 1973

St. Pete Council OKs study to review costs, benefits of owning its own utilities Responding to the frustrations expressed by local residents, the St. Petersburg City Council has taken a major step towards potentially jettisoning its longtime relationship with Duke Energy Florida and creating its own city-run electric utility. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/06/05/st-pete-council-oks-study-to-review-costs-benefits-of-owning-its-own-utilities/? She’s out: Democratic Rep. Lindsay Cross says she will not run for re-election This is a developing story. St. Petersburg Democratic House Rep. Lindsay Cross stunned political observers Thursday when she announced she will not run for re-election. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/06/04/shes-out-democratic-rep-lindsay-cross-says-she-will-not-run-for-re-election/? Shevrin Jones files to succeed Frederica Wilson in CD-24 Former state Senator Shevrin Jones is running to succeed eight-term U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in Congressional District 24, according to paperwork filed Thursday morning. https://floridaphoenix.com/briefs/shevrin-jones-files-to-succeed-frederica-wilson-in-cd-24/?

Crime Spree of Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Revealed as Worse Than Known One in 16 of the rioters whom the president freed has since been arrested, charged, or convicted of other crimes. At least 97 of the more than 1,500 Capitol rioters pardoned by President Donald Trump have since been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of crimes unrelated to Jan. 6. The figure, published Thursday by the independent legal outlet Lawfare, is nearly triple the largest prior tally and amounts to nearly one in 16 of the insurrectionists swept up in the clemency order Trump, 79, signed on his first day back in office. The crimes “run the gamut,” Lawfare reports, from low-grade offenses such as trespassing and drug paraphernalia to grand larceny, stalking, plots to kill politicians and police, and fraud against the government. At least 14 pardonees have been charged with sex crimes or offenses tied to child sexual abuse material. At least six have faced domestic violence charges. At least 20 have been hit with DUI or public intoxication charges. Most damning, five of those Trump freed were arrested over conduct that happened at least partly after their release. That means the clemency order may have actively enabled their alleged crimes. One of the five, Lawfare reported, is Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, a Florida handyman freed by the pardon in 2025. A Hernando County jury convicted him in February of five charges, including the molestation of two children, and he was sentenced to life in prison in March. Police said he tried to silence one victim by promising to share restitution money he expected from the Trump administration over his Jan. 6 case. Another, as PunchUp exclusively revealed last month, is Christopher Quaglin, 40. The violent Proud Boys member was sentenced to 12 years after he committed some of the most heinous crimes on Jan. 6, but served only four before Trump pardoned him. As our sister Substack reported on May 29, the electrician from North Brunswick, New Jersey, who currently lives in Florida, has been arrested twice in the past three months alone—including in May, when he allegedly fought with officers who arrested him for disorderly conduct. The new count dwarfs earlier figures. The New York Times editorial board counted 39 reoffenders in March. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington identified 33 in December 2025, a figure echoed by a report from the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee. Tracking the pardonees is difficult because, unlike parolees, they face no monitoring or reporting requirements, Lawfare noted. The job has been made harder by the Justice Department’s deletion of Jan. 6 defendant records, which Lawfare has worked to restore. Trump signed the sweeping proclamation hours after his second inauguration, with no pardon attorney review and no victim notification, undoing what had been the largest federal investigation in U.S. history. The findings come weeks after the administration floated a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate those it says were politically targeted. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would not rule out letting pardoned rioters who assaulted police claim payouts, per CNBC, though the DOJ is now backing off the plan amid Republican pushback. One case shows the pardons cutting the other way, too. Andrew Taake, 37, a Houston man, had pleaded guilty to soliciting what he believed was a 15-year-old girl for sex—a charge that predated the riot. He escaped a sentence by drawing on prison-time “credit” banked while detained for bear-spraying a police officer at the Capitol, a conviction Trump then erased, the Daily Beast revealed last November. He didn’t reoffend after walking free—but the clemency still spared him punishment for a separate child sex crime. “President Trump has exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations for a variety of individuals, including those who have been victims of Biden’s weaponized justice system,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast, before pivoting to an attack on former President Joe Biden’s clemency decisions. “The White House has a rigorous pardon review process which includes the White House Counsel, the Department of Justice, and ultimately the President as the final decider. And the only pardons anyone should be critical of are from President Autopen, who pardoned and commuted sentences of violent criminals including child killers and mass murderers—and that’s not to mention the proactive pardons he ‘signed’ for his family members like Hunter on his way out the door.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-jan-6-pardon-crime-spree-revealed-as-even-worse-than-known/?

The Jolly Donald View in browser The U.S. Navy was born to fight piracy. After the Revolutionary War, the United States maintained no standing fleet, but attacks by the Barbary pirates—corsairs based in North Africa who preyed on American merchant ships and took sailors ransom—drove Congress to reestablish a navy in the 1790s. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson dispatched ships to the Mediterranean to fight the pirates, and the successful war that followed proved a template for American interventions for centuries: The U.S. showed it was willing to use military force to defend American commercial interests and to punish bad international actors. Trump has already rejected much of this vision of American foreign policy, a point he demonstrated vividly last month by approvingly likening the U.S. Navy to pirates while describing an interdiction in the Persian Gulf. “We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business. Who would have thought we were doing that?” the president said in West Palm Beach, Florida. “We’re like pirates.” Perhaps a man as enthralled by gold as Trump was bound to find a natural affinity with pirates. In fact, the Trump administration is taking a buccaneering attitude around the globe—not just in the actions in the Middle East that Trump described. The U.S. continues to blow up boats, including one yesterday, in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean without any due process or basis in law. And in Washington, a prominent senator has proposed that the U.S. government commission privateers—basically, government-licensed pirates—to battle narco-traffickers. Since the start, the strikes have been a lawless operation. Few legal experts believe there is any justification for them. The Trump administration claims that those targeted are drug smugglers but has presented no evidence for this. Surely, some of them are, though reliable reporting suggests that others are not. Even if the administration had evidence of drug smuggling, that is not the same thing as a conviction; and even if these people had a conviction, federal law does not establish capital punishment for drug trafficking. The attacks received lots of attention when they began, much of it negative, and a few outlets (especially those based overseas) have stayed focused on covering them. But the attention of the public and, especially, Congress has moved on: There are flailing wars and cartoonish corruption going on. Meanwhile, the strikes have actually accelerated. Like the pirates of the golden age, the U.S. military is functioning as an unseen menace, dealing death with no warning or recourse. More than 200 people have been killed in the strikes, but as The New York Times reported a few days ago, the campaign has made no dent in the cocaine trade to the United States. Senator Mike Lee would rather this work be done by private individuals. The Utahn introduced a bill in December that would authorize the president to issue letters of marque, a tool by which the government licenses private individuals to attack foreign interests by seizing ships, as a way of taking on drug traffickers. The Constitution does specifically grant Congress the power to issue letters of marque, though they were effectively abolished by an international treaty in 1856. The wisdom of encouraging private Americans to get into armed battles with cartels is certainly debatable, and the Senate has not advanced the bill. In the absence of privateers, Trump seems to enjoy the idea of the U.S. military acting as outlaws on the seas. During his protracted attempt to figure out what he wants and what he can get out of the war in Iran, Trump announced a full blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. As Lawfare’s Todd Huntley writes, a full blockade would be a violation of international law, though that’s not actually what the U.S. is doing. (One sometimes gets the sense that Trump uses maximalist language without knowing or caring what it means, simply because it sounds cool to him; he also futilely called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”) No one disputes that the Iranian government is acting illegally in the strait. Under international law, the Strait of Hormuz is open to navigation, but Iran has mined the strait and allowed only certain vessels to pass through it, attacking others. The question is what the United States can do in response. (Complicating the matter is the fact that Iran closed the strait after Trump launched a war that is dubious under international law and unauthorized by Congress.) The traditional—and responsible—role for the United States, in the lineage of fighting the Barbary pirates, would be to defend the international norm of free navigation and push to reopen the strait. Trump has been willing to mouth these words. Visiting China last month, he said he raised the issue with Xi Jinping, but Trump did not make it a major focus and received no commitments from Xi. What seems to really excite Trump is not freedom of navigation but financial gain. As his remarks in West Palm Beach indicated, Trump is taken with the idea of seizing ships and selling their cargoes. He had the same impulse with oil tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, which the U.S. seized this winter. The problem is that, as with many of Trump’s past schemes to make money, this one is a mess in practice. As The New York Times reported in March, maintaining just one seized oil tanker had cost $47 million. Perversely, Trump’s war in Iran has driven up the price of oil, so the cargo on board is more valuable. Still, seizing ships doesn’t seem like a very effective way to fill the Treasury’s coffers, and embracing freebooting carries risks besides financial ones. Free and peaceful navigation have enabled the prosperity of the United States and much of the world. No child, or reader of Robert Louis Stevenson, can deny the allure of pirates, but the marauders are rarely the good guys in the story. Related: 20 U.S. boat strikes in three months Trump’s logic for blockading the blockaders