babysandpiper

Gavin Newsom is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s media playbook.

The California governor accused Fox News of defamation in a lawsuit Friday morning, alleging the network should fork over $787 million after host Jesse Watters claimed Newsom lied about his phone calls with Trump, who ordered National Guard troops to Los Angeles this month. Newsom’s lawyers argue Watters’ program misleadingly edited a video of Trump to support the claim.

The Democratic likely presidential hopeful’s request for damages is nearly identical to the $787.5 million sum Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 to settle another defamation case over election falsehoods. And it comes amid a spate of lawsuits from Trump against major media and other companies that resulted in multi-million dollar settlements.

A bill by Sen. Tom Cotton would cut the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by 60%. The move comes as Gabbard appears to have fallen out of favor in the Trump administration.

A top Republican senator is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, slashing the workforce of an organization that has expanded since it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Under a bill by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Republican chair of the Intelligence Committee, the ODNI’s staff of about 1,600 would be capped at 650, according to a senior Senate aide familiar with the proposed legislation.

ODNI’s workforce was about 2,000 in January, but National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard has already overseen a reduction of about 20% as part of the Trump administration’s drive to shrink the federal workforce. The reduction in the staff Gabbard oversees could weaken her role in the intelligence bureaucracy at a time when she appears to have fallen out of favor with the White House.

As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.

As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.

Russia has rejected demands for the children to be returned, with an official accusing Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children” during ceasefire talks in Turkey this month.

Donald Trump’s justice department has sued the federal judiciary in Maryland over an order that bars the government from deporting undocumented immigrants for at least one day after they file a legal challenge to their detention.

The move to sue an entire bench of federal judges in a single district illustrates pressure coming from the Trump administration on the judiciary to fall in line with the administration’s policies.

“After blatantly violating judicial orders, and directing personal attacks on individual judges, the White House is turning our Constitution on its head by suing judges themselves,” the governor of Maryland said in a statement. “Make no mistake: this unprecedented action is a transparent effort to intimidate judges and usurp the power of the courts.”

Canada's parliament has passed a landmark bill giving Prime Minister Mark Carney's government new powers to fast-track major national projects.

The One Canadian Economy Act was passed by the Senate on Thursday, and allows the cabinet to streamline approvals processes and bypass certain provisions of federal laws for projects that could boost the economy.

Supporters have argued the legislation is a critical step in reducing Canada's dependence on the United States, amid trade tensions sparked by President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Iranian authorities have carried out a wave of arrests and multiple executions of people suspected of links to Israeli intelligence agencies, in the wake of the recent war between the two countries.

It comes after what officials describe as an unprecedented infiltration of Iranian security services by Israeli agents.

Authorities suspect information fed to Israel played a part in a series of high-profile assassinations during the conflict. This included the targeted killings of senior commanders from the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and nuclear scientists, which Iran attributes to operatives of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency working inside the country.

A government-appointed commission announced that Germany would raise its minimum wage twice over the next two years. The move would give Germans the second-highest minimum wage in the EU, after Luxembourg.

Environmental groups, immigration advocates and Native Americans decry idea to set up the outdoor detention camp

Environmental groups, immigration rights activists and a Native American tribe have decried the construction of a harsh outdoor migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades billed by state officials as “Alligator Alcatraz”.

Crews began preparing the facility at a remote, largely disused training airfield this week in support of the Trump administration’s aggressive goal of arresting and incarcerating 3,000 undocumented migrants every day.

It is among a number of controversial new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) jails appearing around the country as the number of detentions by the agency surges dramatically.

Iran's government also voted to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will stymie efforts to monitor its uranium enrichment.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke his weeklong silence Thursday, claiming in a televised speech that his country had secured a victory over Israel and delivered a "slap in the face" to Washington.

Hours earlier, Iran's government also approved legislation to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a move that will stymie efforts to assess the damage from U.S. airstrikes and monitor uranium enrichment.

“The Islamic Republic emerged victorious and, in return, delivered a harsh slap to America’s face,” Khamenei said after eight days of silence.

Europeans still aren't buying Teslas with figures out Wednesday showing sales plunged for a fifth month in a row in May, a blow to investors who had hoped anger toward Elon Musk would have faded by now.

Tesla sales fell 28% last month in 30 European countries even as the overall market for electric vehicles expanded sharply, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. The poor showing comes after Tesla's billionaire CEO had promised a “major rebound” was coming last month, adding to a recent buying frenzy among investors.

They were selling on Wednesday, pushing the prices down more than 4% in early afternoon trading.

The Commerce Department's Census Bureau on Thursday reported that the international trade in goods increased by about 11% in May as exports decreased while imports remained relatively unchanged.