Trump team threatens to prosecute CNN over reporting on Ice-tracking app

Kristi Noem says ‘we’re working with [DoJ] to see if we can prosecute them’ while president fumes over Iran reporting

Donald Trump and administration officials have threatened CNN over what they said was its promotion of a new app that allows users to track and try to avoid Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents.

Speaking to reporters in Florida on a trip to visit a new Ice detention center in Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said her department and the Department of Justice were looking at prosecuting CNN over its reporting on the app, called IceBlock.

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Trump celebrates harsh conditions for detainees on visit to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

President says immigration jail in Florida Everglades is a ‘little controversial, but I couldn’t care less’

Donald Trump on Tuesday toured Alligator Alcatraz, a controversial new migrant detention jail in the remote Florida Everglades, and celebrated the harsh conditions that people sent there would experience.

The president was chaperoned by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, who hailed the tented camp on mosquito-infested land 50 miles west of Miami as an example for other states that supported Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

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Tuesday briefing: How weakened is Iran after Operation Midnight Hammer – and where might it go from here?

In today’s newsletter: With its nuclear capabilities down but not out and domestic support strong, the question is where Iran goes next

Good morning. The term “cakeism” – the false belief that one can simultaneously enjoy the benefits of two mutually exclusive choices – may forever be associated with the Brexit negotiations, when keeping the advantages of EU membership while also shedding its costs became the UK’s official bargaining position.

But the appeal of cakeism endures, and over the last week the US president’s approach to the conflict with Iran has started to look distinctly gateau-shaped. Donald Trump wants the glory of a decisive victory on the battlefield but is not so keen on the long-term repercussions that come with it: tit-for-tat retaliations, unforeseeable conflict spillage, focused diplomacy, or even regime change – the kind of talk the Maga movement associates with Trump’s predecessors.

Welfare | Downing Street’s plans to see off a major Labour welfare rebellion were in chaos on Monday night, amid continued brinkmanship between MPs and the government over the scale of the concessions. There was significant division between government departments over how to respond to rebels’ demands ahead of the knife-edge vote on Tuesday.

UK news | Police have formally opened a criminal investigation into comments made by Bob Vylan and Kneecap at Glastonbury after reviewing video and audio footage of the performances. Meanwhile on Monday, the BBC said that it should not have allowed chants of “Death to the IDF” at Bob Vylan’s performance to be broadcast.

Crown Estate | King Charles is set to receive official annual income of £132m next year, after his portfolio of land and property made more than £1bn in profits thanks to a boom in the offshore wind sector.

Arms trade | Britain’s decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, despite accepting they could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza, was lawful, London’s high court has ruled. The judges ruled that the “acutely sensitive and political issue” was “a matter for the executive … not for the courts”.

Crime | A 92-year-old man who evaded justice for almost 60 years has been convicted of raping and murdering a woman in Bristol, after a review by a cold case police team and scientists. Officers believe the 58-year gap between the crime and the conviction may be the biggest in modern English policing history.

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Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s one big beautiful bill

Tesla CEO also threatened forming an ‘America Party’ if the bill, which would increase US deficit by $3.3tn, is passed

Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.

“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.

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Trump signs executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria

White House says move will help stabilise country after ousting of Assad and could lead to broader sanctions relief

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria in a move that the White House says will help stabilise the country after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.

The order was designed to “terminate the United States’ sanctions programme on Syria”, a White House spokesperson said, cancelling a 2004 declaration that froze Syrian government property and limited exports to Syria over Damascus’s chemical weapons programme.

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White House says Canadian PM ‘caved’ to Trump demand to scrap tech tax

Trump officials hail U-turn as Mark Carney says decision to rescind digital services tax means revival of trade talks

The United States has said that Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney “caved” to demands from the White House after his government abruptly scrapped their digital services tax on US technology companies, which was set to go into effect on Monday.

“It’s very simple. Prime minister Carney and Canada caved to president [Donald] Trump and the United States of America,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.

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Sleeper cells and threat warnings: how the US-Iran conflict is spinning up fear

Experts stress that a weakened Iran isn’t in a position to attack on US soil and doesn’t want to invite Trump’s wrath

As the war between Iran and Israel intensified, teasing the eventual involvement of the US military, American security agencies began to warn of a looming threat of Tehran-backed “sleeper cells” known to be active stateside that could be called in for retaliatory attacks.

But as the B-2 bombers struck nuclear sites across Iran and the Iranian military responded with a missile barrage on US bases in the region, a ceasefire took shape. In the end, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Iran’s elite military and intelligence branch, wielding a global web of terrorist groups and agents acting on its behalf – didn’t appear to sponsor or carry out any covert operations inside the US, nor has it since.

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Benjamin Netanyahu corruption trial delayed on diplomatic and security grounds

The Israeli court’s decision to cancel this week’s hearing in the long-running trial came after Donald Trump said the case should be thrown out

An Israeli court has cancelled this week’s hearings in Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial, accepting a request made by the prime minister on classified diplomatic and security grounds.

“Following the explanations given … we partially accept the request and cancel at this stage Mr Netanyahu’s hearings scheduled” for this week, the Jerusalem district court said in its ruling, published online by Netanyahu’s Likud party.

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Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says

Amir-Saeid Iravani says Tehran is ready for negotiations but Trump’s ‘unconditional surrender is not negotiation’

Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”

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Tens of thousands flee Gaza City after Israel warns of major offensive

Israeli forces urge people to evacuate eastern areas before ‘military operations that will escalate and intensify’

Tens of thousands of Palestinians were fleeing eastern parts of Gaza City in the north of the territory on Sunday after Israel warned of a major offensive.

The messages on social media from the Israel Defense Forces warned of “military operations [that] will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city centre to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organisations” and directed those living in several crowded neighbourhoods to al-Mawasi, a coastal area much further south that is already overcrowded and has very limited facilities.

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Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report

President dismisses leaked assessment suggesting strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development

Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.

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Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as Qatar calls for peace talks – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Emirates extended its cancellation of flights to and from Iran’s capital Tehran until July 5 due to the “regional situation“, it said in a statement on Saturday, Reuters reports.

The Dubai-based airline said it will recommence operations to Baghdad on 1 July and Basra on 2 July.

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Gavin Newsom sues Fox News for defamation and demands $787m

California governor accuses network of falsely claiming he lied about a phone call with Donald Trump

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has sued Fox News for defamation and demanded $787m, almost exactly the same amount Fox paid in a previous defamation case over election misinformation.

In the new lawsuit, filed on Friday, Newsom accuses the Fox host Jesse Watters of falsely claiming Newsom lied about a phone call with Donald Trump, who recently ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles.

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‘Orchestrated grovel’: critics react to Europe’s attempts to tame Donald Trump

Nato chief Mark Rutte derided for calling US president ‘daddy’ and showering him with praise over Iran

History may record this week as the one in which Donald Trump came to Europe to discuss defence spending.

Diplomats may remember it as the week in which the art of obsequiousness reached new highs and the sycophants plunged new lows.

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Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill’ and cranks up pressure on Republicans

President calls for passage of signature tax bill but it’s not yet clear whether Senate Republicans have sufficient votes

Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.

The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.

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Trump is making US intelligence parrot his line on Iran – it echoes Bush’s invasion of Iraq

Tailoring assessments to suit political prejudices undermines their very function and led us to the Iraq war

In the run-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, journalists covering the preparations for war became familiar with the concept of “stovepiping”.

The term described the tactic of pushing intelligence to key political decision makers, bypassing checks and balances within the system.

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Clothing prices rising in US as Trump tariffs kick in, H&M boss says

Daniel Ervér cites ‘fast-moving situation’ as US administration has changed rules on several occasions

Clothing prices are beginning to rise in the US as Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported goods start to have an effect, according to the boss of H&M, one of the world’s biggest fashion retailers.

Daniel Ervér, the chief executive of the Swedish retailer, said: “In the US, we are starting to see some competitors increasing prices. Different competitors are acting in different ways. Some more aggressively and some more cautiously.”

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Netanyahu thanks Trump for public call to cancel his corruption trial

Others accuse US president of interfering in Israel’s judicial system after he said case against PM was a ‘witch hunt’

Benjamin Netanyahu has thanked Donald Trump after the US president publicly called for the Israeli prime minister’s long-running corruption trial to be cancelled.

Trump on Wednesday posted a lengthy diatribe against the trial, which could lead to a prison sentence for his ally, describing a “ridiculous witch hunt” that was an “unheard of … horror show” and showering praise on Netanyahu for his leadership of Israel during the short war with Iran that was ended by a ceasefire earlier this week.

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Usha Vance: husband’s pick as Trump running mate came ‘like a bolt of lightning’

Second lady says on Meghan McCain podcast she is ‘not plotting next steps’ and is just ‘along for the ride’

Usha Vance learned her husband, JD, had been selected to be Donald Trump’s running mate “maybe five minutes” before the news was made public – and just about an hour before he was formally nominated.

“It really was like a bolt of lightning,” Vance said during an interview on Meghan McCain’s podcast, Citizen McCain. Nearly a year later, seated in the Naval Observatory, Vance reflected on how radically her life has changed – “people call you ma’am. No one’s ever called me ma’am before this.”

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Trump DoJ ally denies claim he urged defying court orders on immigration

Emil Bove, a former Trump attorney, faced Senate judiciary committee considering him to be federal appeals judge

Emil Bove, a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump, denied to senators on Wednesday a whistleblower’s claim that he suggested prosecutors ignore orders from judges who ruled against the president’s immigration policy.

In a hearing before the Senate judiciary committee to consider his nomination to serve as a federal appeals court judge, Bove, currently the principal associate deputy attorney general at the justice department, also rejected assertions from Democrats that corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams were dropped in order to secure his cooperation with the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.

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