Judge slams Trump’s IRS lawsuit as ‘improper,’ refers acting AG Blanche to bar to face sanctions

Judge slams Trump’s IRS lawsuit as ‘improper,’ refers acting AG Blanche to bar to face sanctions

Democracy Docket reports: President Donald Trump and his two eldest sons’ $10-billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was brought for “an improper purpose,” a Florida-based federal judge ruled. The judge also recommended attorney sanctions for the Trumps’ lawyers. In a blistering ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the strongest rebuke of Trump’s lawsuit from the judiciary yet, characterizing it as an unparalleled expression of self-dealing. “The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the…

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Driver in Maine, not target of a warrant, shot and killed by ICE in front of three-year old daughter

Driver in Maine, not target of a warrant, shot and killed by ICE in front of three-year old daughter

The Daily Beast reports: An ICE-involved shooting has left one man dead in Maine, with an eyewitness saying he was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter, who was wearing Bluey pajamas. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition identified the victim as a 26-year-old Colombian man. The group said he was authorized to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number. He was reportedly heading to work at the time he was shot. The account appeared to…

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U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will take over the Strait of Hormuz — and will be reimbursed “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped” for overseeing one of the world’s most critical oil passageways that has been at the center of the U.S.’s re-escalating war with Iran. “We will become guardians of the strait,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard…

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T-shirt saying, ‘Bombing kids is not self defense,’ offends United Airlines flight attendant

T-shirt saying, ‘Bombing kids is not self defense,’ offends United Airlines flight attendant

CBS News reports: A New Jersey man says his T-shirt nearly got him kicked off a United Airlines flight. Sam Saadeh, of Linden, was on a flight traveling from Atlanta to Newark Liberty International Airport on June 4 while wearing a T-shirt that said, “Bombing kids is not self defense.” Saadeh, who is of Palestinian descent, said the T-shirt holds a deeper meaning and advocates for children. According to a recent United Nations report, more than 20,000 children have been…

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Vance’s tough talk on Israel is alienating some Jewish GOP donors

Vance’s tough talk on Israel is alienating some Jewish GOP donors

Politico reports: JD Vance has an Israel problem. The vice president’s pugnacious defense of a ceasefire agreement with Iran that rattled Israeli diplomats — and his tough talk on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — has damaged his standing with some pro-Israel GOP donors who have backed the party under President Donald Trump. “It’s hard to find any support for him at all in the Jewish community,” said Eric Levine, a prominent GOP fundraiser and board member of the Republican…

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Owners of Meta’s ‘pervert glasses’ are afraid to use them in public

Owners of Meta’s ‘pervert glasses’ are afraid to use them in public

Endgadget reports: On Bluesky, posts regularly suggest that people who wear “pervert glasses” be punched in the face. The criticism of eye-worn gadgets capable of surveillance isn’t new, though the online discourse — “Meta Glasses” repeatedly trended on Meta’s own Threads app last week, for the wrong reasons — seems to have intensified following the release of Meta’s latest cheaper lineup, as well as reports about an unreleased facial recognition feature for the product. For whatever reason, this time the…

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Mapping the largely uncharted terrain of the human microbiome

Mapping the largely uncharted terrain of the human microbiome

Jeneen Interlandi writes: In the mid-2010s, when they were still postdoctoral fellows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mathilde Poyet and Mathieu Groussin kept bumping into different sides of the same obstacle. Poyet, an ecologist and a microbiologist, was trying to study rare bacterial species, the kind that had never been grown in a lab before. Groussin, a computational biologist in the same lab, wanted to understand how humans and microbes evolved together over millenniums. Each was focused on microbes…

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Aspiring to regional domination, Iran is ready to escalate over Strait of Hormuz

Aspiring to regional domination, Iran is ready to escalate over Strait of Hormuz

Yaroslav Trofimov writes: For the Iranian regime, keeping a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz has turned out to be more important than the tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the Trump administration. That is because Tehran is playing a long game. Iranian officials believe the country has finally emerged as a regional hegemon, after the U.S. and Israel failed to achieve their main goals in the war they unleashed in February. And, as long as Tehran…

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How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

The New York Times reports: For two months, under a quiet arrangement with the U.S. Navy, commercial tankers turned off their transponders to avoid detection by Iran as they crossed the perilous Strait of Hormuz to carry oil and gas out to the world. The military offered some air cover in case Iran attacked, as naval officers directed the vessels over the radio to hug Oman’s coast, opposite Iran’s shore. That enabled a steady increase in traffic through the strait…

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Lindsey Graham: The quintessential corrupt politician of this era

Lindsey Graham: The quintessential corrupt politician of this era

Anne Applebaum writes: In his way, the late Lindsey Graham, who unexpectedly died Saturday evening, was the consummate politician of our time. The Republican senator from South Carolina was the epitome, the poster child, the quintessence of our era. Graham’s background and biography made him, during the first part of his career, a fervent American patriot, with a special devotion to the cause of American leadership in the democratic world. Born and raised in a small town in South Carolina,…

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Stephen Miller understands Mein Kampf better than the U.S. Constitution

Stephen Miller understands Mein Kampf better than the U.S. Constitution

Sidney Blumenthal writes: Neither of the supreme court majority opinions in Trump v Barbara, the 5-4 decision upholding the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, mention the true architect of the case. Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160, which would deny citizenship to children born on American soil if their parents are undocumented immigrants or on temporary visas, is extensively noted, but not the man responsible for it. The omission of Stephen Miller is like Dracula without Dracula. The vampire identified is chief…

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Rep. Ro Khanna says ‘IDF is lying’ about his detention by settlers and soldiers

Rep. Ro Khanna says ‘IDF is lying’ about his detention by settlers and soldiers

The Guardian reports: Ro Khanna accused the Israeli government and military of “lying” on Sunday about the US congressman’s detention by armed settlers and Israeli soldiers during a recent visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Khanna – a California Democrat – had posted video evidence on social media of Israeli settlers and soldiers blocking the path of his convoy on Wednesday in the South Hebron hills, near the village of Zanuta, where Israelis have driven Palestinians from their homes in…

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Tommy Robinson’s Musk-funded Russia trip spurs call to defend UK democracy

Tommy Robinson’s Musk-funded Russia trip spurs call to defend UK democracy

The Guardian reports: The UK must do more to defend its democracy after it emerged that Elon Musk’s family foundation had taken the far-right activist Tommy Robinson to Russia, Ed Davey has said. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was brought to Russia by the Musks, the billionaire tech mogul’s father told the Guardian. Robinson appeared last month in Moscow, from where he issued calls for supporters to take to the streets after a knife attack in Belfast. He…

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The U.S. just approved a giant space mirror to test ‘sunlight on demand.’ Low Earth orbit is getting weird

The U.S. just approved a giant space mirror to test ‘sunlight on demand.’ Low Earth orbit is getting weird

Reflect Orbital’s plans to have more than 50,000 satellites reflecting sunlight back to earth could disrupt the circadian rhythms of plants, animals and humans. (Unsplash/Mariana Proença) By Samantha Lawler, University of Regina and Aaron Boley, University of British Columbia A giant mirror to create “sunlight on demand” was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), despite opposition from astronomers and the public, and real safety concerns. The FCC approved the company Reflect Orbital to test one satellite,…

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