Russian media hails Trump-Putin talks as progress
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Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The president's ex-adviser said the 79-year-old looked downright exhausted during his meeting with the Russian leader.
President Donald Trump's former national security adviser thought he looked 'tired' at his Alaska summit, which did him no favors standing opposite Russian President Vladimir Putin. John Bolton said on CNN that Putin 'clearly won' the high-profile encounter on Friday given that he escaped without agreeing to a ceasefire with Ukraine and without additional sanctions on Russia. 'Trump didn't come away with anything except more meetings,' Bolton said. 'Putin has, I think, gone a long way to reestablishing the relationship, which I've always believed was his key goal. He has escaped sanctions. He's not facing a ceasefire. The next meeting is not set.'
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
National Guard to carry weapons in D.C. as West Virginia sends troops at Trump's request
National Guard troops mobilized in Washington, D.C., are preparing to carry weapons in the coming days, according to a new report. Some troops were told to expect an order to start carrying weapons late Friday, though no official order had come as of Saturday morning, The Wall Street Journal reports. This comes after the U.S. Army said in a statement that 'weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory.' President Donald Trump mobilized about 800 members of the D.C. National Guard in the nation's capital this week. As of Thursday, about 200 troops were on the streets of D.C., the Defense Department said. Now, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey is set to send additional National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., at the request of the Trump administration The West Virginia National Guard will provide 'mission-essential equipment, specialized training, and approximately 300-400 skilled personnel as directed,' according to a Saturday statement from Morrisey's office. The mission, which will be 'funded at the federal level,' is a show of 'commitment to public safety and regional cooperation,' the statement adds. More states could follow in West Virginia's footsteps. A White House official told The Independent that the National Guard's role has not changed, and 'additional National Guard troops will be called in to Washington DC.' 'The National Guard will protect federal assets, create a safe environment for law enforcement officials to carry out their duties when required, and provide a visible presence to deter crime,' the official said. D.C. National Guard spokesman Capt. Tinashe Machona told The Washington Post that other states want to participate in the mission, but he couldn't provide a specific number. The Independent has contacted the Washington, D.C. National Guard for comment. Trump claimed he mobilized troops and federalized D.C. police in response to 'out of control' crime that was getting worse. However, data shows that violent crime in Washington, D.C. has been decreasing since 2023. Violent crime in D.C. even hit its lowest point in more than 30 years in 2024, according to the Justice Department. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump's takeover of the police force an 'authoritarian push' on Tuesday. Trump threatened a D.C. takeover earlier this month after Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer, was assaulted in an attempted carjacking. Coristine, 19, is better known by his online nickname 'Big Balls.' 'I have to say that somebody from DOGE was very badly hurt…a young man who was beat up by a bunch of thugs in DC, and either they're gonna straighten their act out in the terms of government and in terms of protection or we're gonna have to federalize and run it the way it's supposed to be run,' Trump said on August 5. Trump also said he was placing the D.C. police under federal control this week. The Justice Department then attempted to name DEA Administrator Terry Cole as the Metropolitan Police Department's 'emergency police commissioner.' D.C. sued in a response, challenging the administration's appointment of Cole and its attempts to assert control over the department. Following an emergency court hearing on Friday, the Trump administration walked back its order, allowing the D.C. government and current police chief Pamela Smith to retain control over the department. Attorney General Pam Bondi instead named Cole her 'designee.' 'I have just issued a new directive to Mayor Bowser requiring MPD to provide the services found necessary by my designee, @DEAHQ Administrator Terry Cole, to comply fully and completely with federal immigration law and authorities, regardless of any policies MPD might otherwise have,' Bondi wrote on X. 'Unfortunately, the DC Attorney General continues to oppose our efforts to improve public safety in Washington, DC,' she added. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb celebrated the judge's decision on Friday. 'The outcome of today's hearing is a win for Home Rule and upholds the District's right to operate its own local police force,' he wrote on X. 'The Court recognized that it was clearly unlawful for the Administration to try to seize control of the Metropolitan Police Department. Chief Smith and @MayorBowser rightfully remain in command of MPD.'
Los Angeles Times
20 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
It's time to save the whales again
Diving in a kelp forest in Monterey Bay recently, I watched a tubby 200-pound harbor seal follow a fellow diver, nibbling on his flippers. The diver, a graduate student, was using sponges to collect DNA samples from the ocean floor. Curious seals, he told me, can be a nuisance. When he bags his sponges and places them in his collection net, they sometimes bite into them, puncturing the bags and spoiling his samples. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, coming closer than 50 yards to seals and dolphins is considered harassment, but they're free to harass you, which seems only fair given the centuries of deadly whaling and seal hunting that preceded a generational shift in how we view the world around us. The shift took hold in 1969, the year a massive oil spill coated the Santa Barbara coastline and the Cuyahoga River, in Cleveland, caught fire. Those two events helped spark the first Earth Day, in 1970, and the shutdown of America's last whaling station in 1971. Protecting the environment from pollution and from loss of wilderness and wildlife quickly moved from a protest issue to a societal ethic as America's keystone environmental legislation was passed at around the same time, written by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. Those laws include the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) , the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), which goes further than the Endangered Species Act (1973) in protecting all marine mammals, not just threatened ones, from harassment, killing or capture by U.S. citizens in U.S. waters and on the high seas. All these 'green' laws and more are under attack by the Trump administration, its congressional minions and longtime corporate opponents of environmental protections, including the oil and gas industry. Republicans' disingenuous argument for weakening the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act is that the legislation has worked so well in rebuilding wildlife populations that it's time to loosen regulations for a better balance between nature and human enterprise. When it comes to marine mammal populations, that premise is wrong. On July 22, at a House Natural Resources subcommittee meeting, Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska introduced draft legislation that would scale back the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Among other things, his proposal would limit the ability of the federal government to take action against 'incidental take,' the killing of whales, dolphins and seals by sonic blasts from oil exploration, ship and boat strikes or by drowning as accidental catch (also known as bycatch) in fishing gear. Begich complained that marine mammal protections interfere with 'essential projects like energy development, port construction, and even fishery operations.' Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the ranking member on the House Resources Committee, calls the legislation a 'death sentence' for marine mammals. It's true that the marine mammal law has been a success in many ways. Since its passage, no marine mammal has gone extinct and some species have recovered dramatically. The number of northern elephant seals migrating to California beaches to mate and molt grew from 10,000 in 1972 to about 125,000 today. There were an estimated 11,000 gray whales off the West Coast when the Marine Mammal Protection Act became law; by 2016, the population peaked at 27,000. But not all species have thrived. Historically there were about 20,000 North Atlantic right whales off the Eastern Seaboard. They got their name because they were the 'right' whales to harpoon — their bodies floated for easy recovery after they were killed. In 1972 they were down to an estimated 350 individuals. After more than half a century of federal legal protection, the population is estimated at 370. They continue to suffer high mortality rates from ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear and other causes, including noise pollution and greater difficulty finding prey in warming seas. Off Florida, a combination of boat strikes and algal pollution threaten some 8,000-10,000 manatees. The population's recovery (from about 1,000 in 1979) has been significant enough to move them off the endangered species list in 2017, but since the beginning of this year alone, nearly 500 have died. Scientists would like to see them relisted, but at least they're still covered by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A 2022 study in the Gulf of Mexico found that in areas affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill 12 years earlier, the dolphin population had declined 45% and that it might take 35 years to recover. In the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, loss of sea ice is threatening polar bears (they're considered marine mammals), bowhead and beluga whales, walruses, ringed seals and harp seals. On the West Coast the number of gray whales — a Marine Mammal Act success story and now a cautionary tale — has crashed by more than half in the last decade to fewer than 13,000, according to a recent report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the nation's lead ocean agency, is an endangered species in its own right in the Trump era). Declining prey, including tiny shrimp-like amphipods, in the whales' summer feeding grounds in the Arctic probably caused by warming water are thought to be a major contributor to their starvation deaths and reduced birth rates. The whale's diving numbers are just one signal that climate change alone makes maintaining the Marine Mammal Act urgent. Widespread marine heat waves linked to a warming ocean are contributing to the loss of kelp forests that sea otters and other marine mammals depend on. Algal blooms off California, and for the first time ever, Alaska, supercharged by warmer waters and nutrient pollution, are leading to the deaths of thousands of dolphins and sea lions. What the Trump administration and its antiregulation, anti-environmental-protection supporters fail to recognize is that the loss of marine mammals is an indicator for the declining health of our oceans and the natural world we depend on and are a part of. This time, saving the whales will be about saving ourselves. David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. His next book, 'Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp,' is scheduled to be published in 2026.
