Watch: Police car ablaze, journalist hit by rubber bullet in LA protests
National Guard troops were deployed to the streets of Los Angeles on Sunday (June 8) to help quell a third day of protests over President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement. Los Angeles police declared several rallies to be "unlawful assemblies" alleging that some protesters threw concrete, bottles and other objects at police.
Video footage captured the moment a Australian journalist was struck by a rubber bullet on Sunday whilst reporting live during the Los Angeles protests. 9News reporter, Lauren Tomasi, had just delivered a piece to camera for viewers in Australia when an armed police officer in riot gear behind her shot her with a rubber bullet.
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The Irish Sun
an hour ago
- The Irish Sun
Putin could attack Nato by 2030, alliance boss warns as ‘Europe needs to build its own Golden Dome defence system'
VLADIMIR Putin could launch an assault on NATO by 2030, an alliance chief has warned. 6 The NATO chief warned the end of the war in Ukraine won't stop the Russian threat Credit: AP 6 The alliance boss warned of Russia's threat to the UK and other European countries Credit: Getty 6 Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte spoke about Russia's looming threat at Chatham House Credit: PA The NATO head said that the alliance would need to take a "quantum leap" in building up its defence systems as Speaking at the world-leading policy institute, Chatham House, he urged European leaders to increase their air and missile defence capabilities by a staggering 400 per cent. Europe should also be prepared to protect its skies, as He said: "The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defence. "The fact is, we must have more forces and capabilities to implement our "The fact is, danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends." In an urgent plea to leaders, he called for militaries to be armed with thousands more vehicles and tanks, and millions more artillery shells. He also insisted allies double their resources supporting military power including logistics, transport and medical aid. Most read in The Sun Terrifyingly, Rutte also hinted at a potential triple threat - with Mad Vlad teaming up with despot leaders in China, North Korea and Russia currently produces in three months what the whole of NATO produces in a year, he said. Russia's ambassador to the UK 'blames Britain' for Ukraine's daring drone attack & warns of 'WWIII risk' China is also modernising and expanding its military, with its battle force expected to increase to 435 ships by 2030. He warned: "Wishful thinking will not keep us safe. We cannot dream away the danger. "Hope is not a strategy. So NATO has to become a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance." The alliance chief's comments came as he pushed for NATO members to commit to ramping up defence spending at a key summit of the western military alliance later this month. Rutte is urging NATO members to commit to 3.5 percent of GDP on direct military spending by 2032, and an additional 1.5 percent on broader security-related expenditure. The proposal is a compromise deal designed to satisfy US President Donald Trump, who has demanded that allies each spend 5 percent of economic output on defence, up from a current commitment of two percent. Rutte said he "expects" leaders to agree to the proposal at the summit of the 32-country alliance on June 24-25 in The Hague. 6 The Israeli Iron Dome air defence system has protected the state from missile attacks Credit: AP 6 Donald Trump recently unveiled plans to build a Golden Dome over America "It will be a NATO-wide commitment and a defining moment for the alliance," he said in his speech. Russia condemned Rutte's comments before he took to the stage, denouncing NATO as "an instrument of aggression". NATO "is demonstrating itself as an instrument of aggression and confrontation", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow. This follows Rutte's meeting with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer - their second Downing Street talk since the Labour leader came into power last year. Starmer's government this year pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, but has not yet set a firm timeline for further hikes. Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada would hit two percent this year. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said last week the allies were close to an agreement on the split five-percent target . "That combination constitutes a real commitment, and we think every country can step up," he said on Thursday. Space rockets & hypersonic interceptors…Trump unveils half-a-trillion dollar Golden Dome air defence to be ready by 2029 DONALD Trump has unveiled plans for a high-tech "Golden Dome" missile defence system, which the president claims should be operational by the end of his term in office. The futuristic concept announced by Trump would see American weapons put in space for the first time ever. Trump had already signalled his intent to set up a Golden Dome following his return to the White House, calling missile attacks the "most catastrophic threat facing the United States". The idea is modelled on Israel's Iron Dome defence system, which uses radar to detect incoming missiles and calculates which ones pose a threat to populated areas. But the Golden Dome would be an infinitely bigger project, not least because the United States is more than 400 times larger than Israel. During his announcement in the Oval Office yesterday, Trump said his new Golden Dome would be "capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from the other side of the world". NATO members have been scrambling to bolster their defence capabilities since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Trump's return to the White House in January, and question marks over his commitment to European security, has added urgency. Rutte warned: "Danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends. "We must have more forces and capabilities to implement our defence plans in full." Read more on the Irish Sun He added that if countries cannot commit to 5 percent for defence spending "you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries, their health systems, the pension system, etc, but you better learn to speak Russian. I mean, that's the consequence". Britain announced plans last week to build up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines and six munitions factories to rearm the country in response to what it said were threats from Russia. 6 He urged Europe to build its own Golden Dome Credit: SWNS
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Crimea was once a crossroads of civilisations, now it's stuck in a wartime cul-de-sac
Every month, Ukraine unleashes three or four attacks on the Crimea bridge. The latest one, last week, used underwater explosives to try to damage the support structure, Ukraine said. Each salvo forces the bridge to close, disrupting the main artery between the Russian mainland and the Black Sea peninsula for up to seven hours. While official information is scarce, a channel on the Telegram app warns motorists to avoid crossing, as it did during another recent attack, because a 'hail of shrapnel' peppers the bridge when Russia's considerable air defences blast the Ukrainian drones. Ever since Russia seized Crimea in 2014 in a preview of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later, the peninsula has been a focal point of the conflict between the countries. Moscow says its conquest righted a historical wrong, and demanded in ceasefire negotiations in Istanbul last week that any settlement include international recognition of Russian control. Ukraine vows to never abandon its claim. READ MORE US president Donald Trump, amid his sporadic attempts to end the war in Ukraine, has also waded into the argument , suggesting that any peace settlement might include Washington's recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Overall, the war has solidified changes to life in Crimea that began with the annexation, isolating the peninsula as a scenic but volatile beach destination limited largely to Russians. The majority 'Crimea is ours' crowd – nicknamed after a Kremlin slogan celebrating the annexation – tends to downplay the conflict as an inconvenience. Opponents, especially members of the indigenous Crimean Tatar minority, who have long accused Russia of systemic oppression, denounce the war for making Crimea less free, less cosmopolitan and far less hospitable. People sit on a bench in front of a building with a large banner in support of Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, in Yalta, Crimea, in May 2023. Photograph: EPA 'No freedom, no choice – and on top of that, it's unsafe,' said a 35-year-old Yalta resident named Irina, who declined to use her full name out of fear of legal problems. 'It's like bingo, but in a bad way. It's a situation that people did not choose, but are forced to live in.' Crimea has been a crossroads for millenniums, colonised by serial invaders from Mongol warriors to Genoese traders. Catherine the Great annexed it for Russia in 1783, and the second World War brought a Nazi occupation. Josef Stalin, Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met there in 1945, at the tsar's former palace at Yalta, to carve postwar Europe into spheres of influence. In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred control over Crimea to Ukraine from Russia, an unremarkable move at the time, since both Ukraine and Russia were within the same country. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Crimea remained part of Ukraine until Russian president Vladimir Putin seized it. With its palm trees and pebble beaches resembling the south of France, Crimea has long been a summer playground. While roughly six million Ukrainians and Russians visited annually before the annexation, the numbers plummeted afterwards and then nosedived again with the invasion. Some critics said nothing mattered more to Crimeans than exploiting tourists. 'If America came and said, 'You're going to be an American state now,' they would probably say, 'Okay, will we have a tourist season or not?'' Irina grumbled. Several of Russia's worst setbacks in the war have occurred in Crimea. Repeated drone attacks forced the Russian navy to abandon Sevastopol, its home port for more than 220 years, to hide in distant Caucasian harbours. This year, security concerns prompted the city to cancel its May 9th Victory Day parade for the third year in a row. The Kerch Strait Bridge was partly closed for four months after October 2022, when Ukraine severely damaged it with an explosives-laden truck. Now, every vehicle must be inspected before crossing, which some residents said gave it the feel of an international border. This year, indications are that tourists might be inclined to ignore the war. On the May 1st national holiday, thousands of vehicles waiting to enter created a six-hour traffic jam, according to the Telegram bridge watch channel. People walk in front of a poster of Russian president Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, in March 2024. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images Visitors cluster along the southern coast, distant from Ukraine's habitual military targets. Ekaterina, the owner of a small hotel, said guests often asked about drones and worried about crossing the bridge, but they still come. Several hotels are being built around hers, she noted. Reminders of the war abound. In June 2024, fragments from a Ukrainian missile killed five beachgoers and wounded more than 100, according to Russia's defence ministry. The next day, people went to the beach anyway, but wore name tags in case ambulance crews needed to identify them, one witness said. Residents of Sevastopol described themselves as inured to endless air raid sirens, while people in larger cities such as Simferopol and Yalta said drones streaked overhead relatively rarely. Igor (85), a philosophy professor living near the Nakhimov Naval Institute warfare academy, said he heard explosions almost nightly, but just hugged his Yorkshire terrier and waited for the attack to end. If every siren sent him to the bomb shelter, he would never sleep, he added. The Crimea bridge regularly comes under attack from Ukraine. Photograph: EPA Military vehicles crowd the roads, residents said, and large billboards exhort men to sign up. One version says: 'You like working in the fresh air? You want to improve your wellbeing, have an apartment and a land plot near the sea? Sign the contract and get 1 million roubles immediately.' (About €11,000.) War fatalities among soldiers include more than 1,200 men either from the peninsula or stationed there, according to a tally maintained by Mediazona and the BBC Russian language service. Civilian deaths have been relatively rare. The hotel owner, who sings in a small jazz ensemble, said the group avoided outdoor concerts but had recently performed in a military hospital. 'It was such a strange feeling – some people were severely injured, with limb amputations, but they were in the hall listening to us,' she said. 'You know it's like life and death walking hand-in-hand.' Russia's most significant territorial gain in the war was the land along Ukraine's southern coast linking Crimea to mainland Russia, about 500km east. A new road provides an alternative route when the bridge comes under attack, but some dislike its repeated military checkpoints. Several hundred people have been criminally prosecuted for political reasons since Russia took Crimea, according to OVD-Info, an independent organisation that tracks open court data. It also found 1,275 administrative cases filed against Crimeans accused of discrediting the armed forces, among the highest number of any Russian region. Defence lawyers for pro-Ukrainian activists can find themselves disbarred. Despite improved living standards, Crimeans rank below the Russian national average in income, especially as the war has pushed up prices, although some benefit. Crimean wines gained a new cachet after the European Union banned most wine sales to Russia, so the cost of vineyard land more than quintupled in four years, one vintner said. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have left the peninsula, while a wave of Russians have emigrated from the mainland, although concrete numbers are elusive. Ukraine says acknowledging Russian sovereignty would reward aggression. Crimeans often react to the idea that a war settlement might include recognition of the peninsula as Russian with a shrug, although they would welcome the end of sanctions that restrict travel and deter outside investment. 'Honestly speaking, the majority of Crimean people don't think about recognition, because they consider Crimea a part of Russia,' said Lubov V Gribkova, a foreign relations adviser to the mayor of Yalta. This article originally appeared in The New York Times .
Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Los Angeles police order immigration protesters downtown to go home
Los Angeles braced for another day of unrest on Monday over US president Donald Trump's immigration policies, after police declared the city's downtown an unlawful assembly area and ordered protesters to go home. California officials pushed back at the deployment of National Guard troops by the White House, saying they were unnecessary and had only inflamed the situation. Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to sue the federal government. "This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted. He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard," Newsom posted on X on Monday. "We're suing him." Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass blamed the Trump administration for inciting tension by sending in the Guard. She also condemned protesters after some burned cars and hurled bottles at police. "I don't want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the administration completely unnecessarily," Bass told a press conference on Sunday. The unrest in Los Angeles has become a flashpoint in Trump's signature effort to clamp down on illegal immigration. The Republican president has pledged to deport record numbers of people who are in the country illegally and to lock down the US-Mexico border, setting the ICE border enforcement agency a daily goal of arresting at least 3,000 migrants. Los Angeles police said some protesters had thrown concrete projectiles, bottles and other items at police. Police declared several rallies to be unlawful assemblies and later extended that to include the whole downtown area. Cleanup continues after a night of protests in downtown Los Angeles. Picture: Damian Dovarganes/AP Several self-driving cars from Alphabet's Waymo were set ablaze on a downtown street on Sunday evening. Police on horseback tried to control the crowds. Some officers used flash-bang grenades and tear gas, CNN reported. Demonstrators shouted "Shame on you!" at police and some appeared to throw objects, video images showed. One group blocked the 101 Freeway, a downtown thoroughfare. City police chief Jim McDonnell told a media briefing on Sunday evening that people had a right to protest peacefully but the violence he had seen by some was "disgusting" and the protests were getting out of control. Police said they had arrested 10 people on Sunday and 29 the previous night, adding arrests were continuing. Vanessa Cardenas, head of the immigration advocacy group America's Voice, accused the Trump administration of "trumping up an excuse to abuse power, and deliberately stoke and force confrontations around immigration." White House responds In response to California's threat to sue the government, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X that "Newsom did nothing as violent riots erupted in Los Angeles for days." Asked if the National Guard was needed, police chief McDonnell said police would not "go to that right away," but added, "Looking at the violence tonight, I think we've got to make a reassessment." In a social media post, Trump called on McDonnell to do so. "He should, right now!!!" Trump added. "Don't let these thugs get away with this. Make America great again!!!" The White House disputed Newsom's characterization of Trump inflaming the situation, saying in a statement, "Everyone saw the chaos, violence and lawlessness." Earlier on Sunday, about a dozen National Guard members, along with Department of Homeland Security personnel, pushed back a group of demonstrators outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, video showed. Police officers patrol the area after a night of protests. Picture: Damian Dovarganes/AP The US Northern Command said 300 members of the California National Guard had been deployed to three spots in the Los Angeles area. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS program "Face the Nation" that the National Guard would provide safety around buildings to people engaged in peaceful protest and to law enforcement. 'All action necessary' The Trump administration's immigration enforcement measures have also included residents who are in the country legally, some with permanent residence, spurring legal challenges. In a social media post on Sunday, Trump called the demonstrators "violent, insurrectionist mobs" and said he was directing his cabinet officers "to take all such action necessary" to stop what he called riots. Despite Trump's language, he has not invoked the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events such as civil disorder. Asked on Sunday whether he was considering doing so, he said, "It depends on whether or not there's an insurrection." Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday the Pentagon is prepared to mobilize active-duty troops "if violence continues" in Los Angeles, saying Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were on high alert. Read More Journalist and photographer hit by non-lethal bullets during LA protests
