
Scots golfer makes Open claim about Trump Turnberry
He said: "As a professional golfer, a professional Scottish golfer, I really hope it is [used].
"It's ranked number one in Scotland and in Britain, and rightly so. It's the best course in Scotland, and it deserves to host an Open.
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"And let's hope the authorities can all get together and find a way around it, and make that happen, and the sooner the better."
It comes after Mark Darbon, the chief executive of the R&A, outlined his hope that Trump's course could feature on the Open rota in future.
In April, the Prime Minister's official spokesman did not deny that officials had spoken to the R&A about the venue for the 2028 tournament, but insisted it was not a decision for the Government.
He said: "It's clearly right and proper and usual for Government to engage with organisers of major sporting events as part of the business of government, but in terms of decisions around tournament hosting venues, that is for the relevant sporting bodies to take decisions on."

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Times
13 minutes ago
- Times
Trump: Israeli strike on Iran ‘could very well happen'
President Trump has said that an Israeli strike on Iran 'could very well happen' after Washington scaled back its diplomats in neighbouring countries in anticipation of Iranian retaliation. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, the president said that Omani-brokered negotiations between American and Iranian officials were making progress and that Israel should show restraint because a deal could be 'close'. The comments came a day after the US said that non-essential staff working at embassies in Baghdad, Kuwait and Bahrain could leave. Washington fears that a lack of progress in talks with Iran could prompt an Israeli strike. Tehran denies having ambitions to build a bomb, but has enriched uranium to just short of the level needed to make a viable nuclear warhead. 'I'd love to avoid the conflict,' Trump said. 'Iran's going to have to negotiate a little bit tougher, meaning they're going to have to give us something they're not willing to give us right now.' On the possibility of an Israeli strike, he added, 'I don't want to say imminent, but it looks like it's something that could very well happen. Iran cannot have a bomb. Whether we get there or not [in the talks], they can't have nuclear weapons.' Asked about whether a fresh round of talks due to begin this weekend could yield a breakthrough, Trump added: 'As long as I think there will be an agreement, I don't want them [the Israelis] going in.' Doing so could 'blow it', he said. MURTADHA AL-SUDANI/ANADOLU The US thinks Israel is 'fully ready' to launch an operation against Iran's nuclear sites, the country's media reported. Tehran had threatened to target American bases in the region if it came under attack from Israel. On Thursday, the Trump administration told the Israeli government that the US would not be directly involved in any military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, Axios reported. Steve Witkoff, the US's lead negotiator, who is expected to arrive in Oman for the next round of talks on Sunday, warned that an Iranian retaliation could overwhelm Israeli defences and inflict mass casualties. Witkoff made the warning during a closed session with Republican senators, the US news site Axios reported. The US and its Arab allies fear a conflict with Iran could turn into a regional war that threatens oil supplies and shipping. During a visit to the Middle East last month, Trump heard pleas from Arab leaders to avoid war with Iran, but he has been frustrated by the pace of the talks and Tehran's rejection of a US proposal to curb its uranium enrichment. Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, threatened that retaliation to an Israeli attack would be 'more forceful and destructive' than last year's Iranian missile attacks on Israel. Separately, Iran announced it would build a new uranium enrichment site and upgrade centrifuges used in the process at its Fordow enrichment plant. The measure came in response to a vote by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency condemning Iran for failing to meet its non-proliferation obligations. Iran had sought to keep Fordow, which was built inside a mountain near the northern city of Qom, a secret for years. The UN discovered uranium enriched to 83 per cent — just shy of the 90 per cent needed for a bomb — at the plant in 2023. Israel denounced the move as 'an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability'. Iran has said it would hold the US culpable for an Israeli attack, raising the spectre of a repeat of its attack on a US military base in Iraq in 2020, after the assassination of its commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq also attacked the American embassy in Baghdad. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Thursday that his government would defend the rights of its citizens in a sixth round of nuclear talks with the US at the weekend in Muscat. He also said that the UN nuclear watchdog's decision to censure Iran added 'to the complexity of the discussions'. Israel had been preparing for a strike this year before Trump blocked it. He warned Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, against attacking Iran again in a phone call on Monday. Israeli patience is wearing thin, however, and western officials said this week that the country was preparing to launch strikes soon, according to The New York Times and CBS. Mike Huckabee, Washington's ambassador to Israel, told the Israeli media that it was unlikely Netanyahu would order a strike on Iran without a 'green light' from the White House. The nuclear negotiations stumbled over a US insistence that Iran no longer enrich uranium, even for civilian purposes, as part of a deal that would lift sanctions on Tehran. Iran insists on its 'right' to produce the material and has publicly rejected an initial US proposal that was presented by Omani mediators this month. Iran came into the talks weaker than ever, after Israel decimated its Hamas and Hezbollah allies in Gaza and Lebanon. Much of its air defences were also wiped out in retaliatory Israeli strikes last year. Israel believes it now has a historic opportunity to finish off the country's nuclear programme, but sceptics question whether airstrikes could destroy the deeply fortified and scattered facilities across Iran. Trump had previously asked Israel for guarantees that it would not attack Iran while the negotiations continued, but Israel could seize the opportunity if the scheduled talks for Sunday fail. The US may hope that the threat will make Tehran more flexible in the talks.


BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
Los Angeles is latest in Trump's calls to use military at protests
Donald Trump has long spoken of using military force to suppress protesters demonstrating against his policies and presidency. This week, Los Angeles gave him the some protests against federal immigration sweeps grew chaotic, Trump overrode the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom and activated the state's National Guard – a move former military leaders told the BBC was an escalation of Trump's previous pledges to use troops to quash protests and set a new with Trump's penchant for military optics – he has planned a military parade in Washington, DC on Saturday to mark the Army's 250th anniversary – the president's intervention in Los Angeles has raised fears that he is "politicizing the military," said Major General Randy Manner, US Army Retired."He escalated immediately for reasons that are only political reasons. They are not reasons that are justifiable," said General Manner, who served as the acting vice chief of the National Guard the Trump administration maintains it took over California's National Guard to restore order, and protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as they conducted sweeps for undocumented immigrants in Los "has the right to safely conduct operations in any state, in any jurisdiction in the country", Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said at a congressional hearing on also posted that Newsom "was unable to provide protection in a timely manner" for ICE officers."If our troops didn't go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now," he wrote on TruthSocial on Wednesday. But Newsom - a Democrat and outspoken critic of Trump - maintained that the state could handle protesters on its own. He called Trump's intervention a "brazen abuse of power" that inflamed a "combustible situation." The protests have continued for nearly a week and Los Angeles police have made hundreds of arrests, mainly for failure to disperse, but also for breaking curfew around downtown Los Angeles, posession of a firearm and assaulting a police officer. Trump's decision to wrest control of the Guard from Newsom goes beyond past tough stances on protests, particularly in states led by the death of George Floyd in 2020 sparked nationwide demonstrations for police reform and racial justice, Trump called for a militarized had criticised his death, which occurred in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But as protests broke out and some devolved into looting, Trump later called for Democratic governors to get "much tougher", warning "the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests."When protesters marched in Washington, DC, Trump tweeted that they would "have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen" if they had breached the White the DC protests, National Guard helicopters flew low over crowds to disperse them. A subsequent investigation by the US Army concluded the incident was a misuse of military medical aircraft, the Washington Post reported."What we're seeing in Los Angeles is a perfect storm," said John Acevedo, an associate dean at Emory Law School who studies free speech and protests in the US. "There are protesters, they are violent. A perfect setup situation for President Trump, where he can use his goal of using troops against protesters."The president does have the power to federalise National Guard troops, and will do so when they are needed overseas or states request additional assistance. But under normal domestic circumstances, the request for their assistance starts at the local level. The governor then can activate the state's Guard, or ask the president for federal presidents have not taken control of a state's National Guard against a governor's wishes since the Civil Rights era, when President Dwight Eisenhower intervened to aid school integration in Arkansas, and President Lyndon B Johnson later called on Alabama's troops to protect demonstrators."We have, over the decades, developed statutes and regulations and protocols that govern how we handle civil disturbances for very solid reasons," said Major General (Ret.) William Enyart, a former congressman who also led the Illinois National Guard from 2007 to chose to "ignore all that hard-earned experience," General Enyart saw the president's actions in Los Angeles as "political theatre" and referenced a small number of protesters who burned Waymo self-driving cars over the weekend. "Trump is the master of reality television. He understands this is great TV. What is more exciting than seeing a couple self-driving cars burning in the street?" said General Enyart.


Reuters
31 minutes ago
- Reuters
US court blocks CFPB move to scrap racial discrimination settlement
June 12 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday refused to allow the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to vacate a racial discrimination settlement reached last year with a mortgage lender, finding there was no basis for granting an extraordinary request. The decision marked a setback after senior Trump administration officials claimed in March they were seeking redress for a company, Townstone Financial, that they said had been baselessly "persecuted" without evidence. Representatives for the agency and Townstone, which jointly filed the motion with the CFPB, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The CFPB originally brought the case in 2020 during Donald Trump's first presidency, accusing Townstone of "redlining" by discouraging would-be Black home buyers from applying for mortgages through derogatory and disparaging comments in promotional materials. U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama cast doubt on CFPB claims that there had been no evidence underlying the CFPB's original case. Reversing a prior CFPB action in this way, he said, amounted to "an act of legal hara-kiri that would make a samurai blush." "At bottom, to grant the motion based on the arguments advanced by the parties would be to undermine the finality of judgments," Valderrama said. "That is a Pandora's box the court refuses to open."