Month: June 2025

NEW YORK — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its crescendo as New York and other major cities in the U.S. and around the world hosted parades and marches Sunday.

Pride celebrations are typically a daylong mix of jubilant street parties and political protest, but this year’s iterations took a more defiant stance as Republicans, led by President Trump, have sought to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.

The theme of the festivities in Manhattan was “Rise Up: Pride in Protest.” San Francisco’s Pride theme was “Queer Joy Is Resistance,” while Seattle’s was simply “Louder.”

Lance Brammer, a 56-year-old teacher from Ohio attending his first Pride parade in New York, said he felt “validated” as he marveled at the size of the city’s celebration, the nation’s oldest and largest.

“With the climate that we have politically, it just seems like they’re trying to do away with the whole LGBTQ community, especially the trans community,” he said, wearing a vivid, multicolored shirt. “And it just shows that they’ve got a fight ahead of them if they think that they’re going to do that with all of these people here and all of the support.”

Doriana Feliciano, who described herself as an LGBTQ+ ally, held up a sign saying, “Please don’t lose hope,” in support of friends she said couldn’t attend Sunday.

“We’re in a very progressive time, but there’s still hate out there, and I feel like this is a great way to raise awareness,” she said.

Manhattan’s parade wound its way down Fifth Avenue with more than 700 participating groups greeted by huge crowds. The rolling celebration will pass the Stonewall Inn, the famed Greenwich Village gay bar where a 1969 police raid triggered protests and energized the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The site is now a national monument. The first Pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

Later Sunday, marchers in San Francisco, host to another of the world’s largest Pride events, planned to head down Market Street to concert stages set up at the Civic Center Plaza. San Francisco’s mammoth City Hall is among the venues hosting a post-march party.

Denver, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Toronto were among the other major North American cities hosting Pride parades on Sunday.

Several global cities including Tokyo, Paris and São Paulo held their events earlier this month, and others come later in the year, including London in July and Rio de Janeiro in November.

Since taking office in January, Trump has issued orders and implemented policies targeting transgender people, removing them from the military, preventing federal insurance programs from paying for gender-affirmation surgeries for young people and attempting to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports.

Peter McLaughlin said he’s lived in New York for years but had never attended the Pride parade. The 34-year-old Brooklyn resident said he felt compelled this year as a transgender man.

“A lot of people just don’t understand that letting people live doesn’t take away from their own experience, and right now it’s just important to show that we’re just people,” McLaughlin said.

Gabrielle Meighan, 23, of New Jersey, said she felt it was important to come out to this year’s celebrations because they come days after the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark June 26, 2015, ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“It’s really important to vocalize our rights and state why it’s important for us to be included,” she said.

Manhattan on Sunday also hosted the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched in recent years amid criticism that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.

Marchers holding signs that included “Gender affirming care saves lives” and “No Pride in apartheid” headed north from the city’s AIDS Memorial to Columbus Circle near Central Park.

Among the other headwinds faced by gay rights groups this year is the loss of corporate sponsorship. American companies have pulled back support of Pride events, reflecting a broader walking back of diversity and inclusion efforts amid shifting public sentiment.

NYC Pride said this month that about 20% of its corporate sponsors dropped or reduced support, including PepsiCo and Nissan. Organizers of San Francisco Pride said they lost the support of five major corporate donors, including Comcast and Anheuser-Busch.

Marcelo and Shaffrey write for the Associated Press.

It took Julio César Chávez Jr. three rounds to throw an accurate punch, three more to show he was awake and three more to remember he could fight. The Mexican boxer’s effort was not enough and he lost by unanimous decision to Jake Paul, who showed many defensive deficiencies that Chávez — a former middleweight champion — did not take advantage of.

While Chávez was slowly reacting to his opponent, Paul (12-1, 7 KOs) was scoring points, forcing the son of Mexican legend Julio César Chávez to row against the current in the bout’s final rounds. Julio César Chávez Jr. seemed disconnected in the early rounds and spent time complaining to the referee about alleged headbutts and ill-intentioned punches from his opponent.

“I reacted too late,” said Chávez (54-7-1, 34 KOs) after Saturday night’s bout at the Honda Center in Anaheim, where his frustrated father was among the fans. Julio César Chávez frequently stood up from his seat and shouted directions to his eldest son.

“He’s a strong fighter and after the first three or four rounds, he got tired, so I think he’s not ready for championship fights, but he’s a good fighter,” Julio César Chávez Jr. said of Paul — a YouTube star turned boxer — after the loss.

Despite his poor start and loss, Chávez was not booed. Paul earned that right from the first moment cameras captured his walk to the ring before the fight began.

The decibels erupted when Paul appeared wearing the colors of the Mexican flag on his robe as he walked to the ring to the rhythm of Kilo’s “Dance Like a Cholo.”

“It’s one of the songs I used to dance to when I was a kid,” Paul said during a news conference after the fight.

Paul did it, he said, in honor of Mexican legend Julio César Chávez.

“It was an ode to his father,” Paul assured. “I wore the same outfit as his dad every time I walked to the fights. It’s a respect to his dad. But also, when I got in the ring, I said, ‘I’m going to be your daddy tonight.’”

(Etienne Laurent / Associated Press)

After speaking with reporters, Paul improvised a face-off when he crossed paths with Gilberto Ramirez, the evening’s co-main event. Ramirez is the World Boxing Assn. (WBA) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) cruiserweight champion after defending his belts against Cuba’s Yuniel Dorticos.

Ramirez is not exactly a fighter known for creating an intense pre-fight atmosphere, but he presents another opportunity for Paul to cement himself as a legitimate boxer. Paul has said he has faced difficulty scheduling fights after his unconventional move from YouTube stunts to sanctioned boxing.

“I still want to do it. I’m used to these guys not being good promoters and at the end of the day, I’m going to fight these guys,” Paul said. “Today, I feel like it was the first day of my boxing career, I’m just warming up and this is the second chapter from here on out.”

Paul has been consistently criticized for not facing trained boxers. Chávez was just the third boxer Paul has faced in his 13 fights since debuting in January 2020. In 2024, 58-year-old legend Mike Tyson was the second fighter he faced.

Paul’s only loss came at the hands of Tommy Fury in February 2023.

“I don’t think I was a fighter at the time, I was barely two and a half years into the sport,” Paul said, reflecting on his start in the sport and loss to Fury. “I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t have the right equipment around me, the right conditioning. My lifestyle outside of the ring was still like that of a YouTuber, a famous actor or whatever it was at that point in time. I wasn’t completely focused on boxing.

”… Chapter one is over today and now I’m moving on to chapter two. … People still hold the Tommy Fury fight against me, but now I’ve beaten a former world champion and I’m coming to collect on that loss to Tommy.”

Jake Paul, right, punches Julio César Chávez Jr. during their cruiserweight boxing match on Saturday at the Honda Center.

(Etienne Laurent / Associated Press)

In the co-feature, Ramirez (48-1, 30 KOs) defended his cruiserweight titles against mandatory challenger Dorticos (27-3, 25 KOs). Ramirez won by unanimous decision after the judges’ scorecards read 115-112, 115-112, 117-110.

“I think it was a good performance, he can hit. I don’t know why it was so close in the scores, but it is what it is,” Ramírez said.

He is eager to lock in a unification fight against International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion Jai Opetaia.

“We’re going to unify titles,” Ramirez said. “I just had to follow my plan, listen to my corner and get the job done, that’s all.”

Although Ramirez entered the fight as the favorite to defend his belts, the Mexican was slow, allowing the scores to be closer than expected. Dorticos was decisive in the early rounds, but as time went on, Ramirez made up ground. Dorticos lost a point after the referee penalized him for connecting consecutive low blows.

Making her return to professional boxing after a 12-year absence, former UFC champion and ring veteran Holly Holm (34-2-3, 9 KOs) faced undefeated Mexican Yolanda Vega Ochoa (10-1, 1 KOs) in a 10-round bout. Holm dominated from the start, setting the pace with her jab, controlling her opponent’s attack and using precise combinations. Vega opted to press, but landed constant clean punches and was unable to connect meaningful combinations that would turn the tide of the fight.

Holm won by unanimous decision, with all three judges scoring the fight 100-90. Her performance was resounding because of her tactical control, mobility and ability to neutralize Vega’s offense, who was unable to break her strategy or avoid the cleaner punches.

“I love kicking so much that I loved MMA for a while, but then I started to feel a growing pain from wanting to box again, so it’s been fun to come back and just get those boxing arms going,” Holm said. “I only sparred in wrestling shoes twice, I was barefoot the whole camp, I was looking for my groin protector the day I flew in, it was in the dumpsters in my garage. I’m still training with the same team, with the same trainers, I did the whole camp. I haven’t sparred in a ring in I don’t know how long, so this feels great.”

With a great combination and a powerful uppercut, Mexican Raúl Curiel (16-0-1, 14 KOs) knocked down Uruguayan Victor Rodríguez (16-1-1, 9 KOs) in the fourth round and although the Uruguayan managed to get to his feet, he did not have the power to stop an onslaught from Curiel. The referee stopped the fight at the 2:09 mark during the fourth round.

The fight determined the mandatory challenger for the World Boxing Assn. (WBA) welterweight title.

“It was an eliminator for the title, so I pushed myself,” said Curiel, a Tampico, Tamaulipas, native. “I knew it would end in knockout. I didn’t know which round, but knockout. I was strong.”

Rodríguez finished the fight in bad shape, with his nose injured and one eye swollen and bleeding.

Now Curiel wants to fight Rolando Romero, the WBA welterweight champion who most recently beat Ryan Garcia by unanimous decision in May.

“With whoever, whatever champion is available,” Curiel said. “Let’s fight Rolly. We fight all the champions.”

Welterweight Julian Rodríguez (24-1, 15 KOs) earned a dramatic win over Avious Griffin (17-1, 16 KOs), who lost his undefeated record and at times appeared to be in control of the bout. With five seconds left in the 10th round, Rodríguez knocked Griffin down in such a way that he almost knocked him out of the ring.

The fight was mostly evenly matched and two of the judges had the bout as a draw, while the third gave Rodríguez the win by two points.

“All the sacrifice, all the pain to get to this point,” Rodriguez, who was clearly exhausted, said in the ring. “It was pure emotion. Now I’ll be back in the gym in the next two or three weeks.”

In a lightweight bout, Floyd Schofield (19-0, 13 KOs) wasted no time and in just 78 seconds of the first round took out veteran Tevin Farmer (33-9-1, 8 KOs). Schofield knocked Farmer down twice and the referee stopped the bout at the 1:18 mark.

In February, Schofield had a fight scheduled against World Boxing Council (WBC) champion Shakur Stevenson in Saudi Arabia, but he was unable to make it because he was hospitalized twice before that bout. Schofield has not explained the reasons for his hospitalization.

“I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” Schofield said after Saturday’s win over Farmer. “They doubted me since what happened in February, and a lot of people didn’t believe I would win this fight. It’s just a lot of excitement.”

Preliminary fight results

In a welterweight bout, Joel Iriarte defeated Kevin Johnson by unanimous decision: 78-74, 80-72, 79-74.

Bantamweight Alexander Gueche was the winner against Vincent Avina: 80-72, 80-72, 79-73.

At heavyweight, Joshua Edwards knocked out Dominic Hardy in the first round.

Super featherweight René Alvarado beat Víctor Morales by unanimous decision: 96-94, 99-91, 99-91.

John Ramírez defeated Josué Jesús Morales at bantamweight by unanimous decision: 79-73, 80-72, 80-72.

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.

June 29 (UPI) — Iran likely can resume uranium enrichment to make a nuclear bomb in a few months, despite damage to nuclear facilities by United States and Israel airstrikes, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief said.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was a “very serious level of damage” to the nuclear facilities during an interview with CBS News on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. airstrikes on June 21 “obliterated” the facilities, including Fordo, which is underground in a mountain. Initial intelligence assessments suggested that the strikes were successful but set back Iran’s program by months — not years.

“It can be, you know, described in different ways, but it’s clear that what happened in particular in Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, where Iran used to have and still has, to some degree, capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree,” Grossi said. “Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those of those capabilities.”

He explained what remains.

“The capacities they have are there,” Grossi said. “They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”

He wants International Atomic Energy officials to be able to return sites for an assessment.

“Although our job is not to assess damage, but to re-establish the knowledge of the activities that take place there, and the access to the material, which is very, very important, the material that they will be producing if they continue with this activity,” Grissi said. “This is contingent on negotiations, which may or may not restart.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said the facilities were “seriously damaged,” posted on X on Friday that “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.”

Israel was fearful that Iran was nearly ready to have a nuclear bomb within months, and began airstrikes on June 13. Israel relied on American B-2 fighter jets that can send bombs deep into the ground.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran amassed enough 60% enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, nuclear deal, which was negotiated by Iran, the United States and the EU, Iran wasn’t permitted to enrich uranium above 3.67% purity, which is the level need to fuel commercial nuclear power plants. Iran also was not allowed to carry out any enrichment at the Fordo plant for 15 years.

In 2018, President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement among world powers, and instead reinstated U.S. sanctions in an attempt to stop Iran from moving toward making a bomb. Iran resumed enrichment at Fordo in 2021.

On Friday, the IAEA said radiation levels in the Gulf region remain after the bombings.

Grossi, citing regional data through the 48-nation International Radiation Monitoring System, said the “the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided.”

The main concern IAEA had was for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor because strikes to either facility, including off-site power lines, would have cause some type of radiological accident felt in both Iran and neighboring nations, but “it did not happen,” he said.

Grossi noted that the airstrikes would have caused localized radioactive releases inside the impacted facilities and localized toxic effects, based on the roughly 900 pounds of enriched uranium Iran is thought to have had before the attacks.

Trump has said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again if intelligence found that it could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Years of fighting between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda may be at an end – thanks to a peace deal signed in the United States.

Rwanda has agreed to remove thousands of troops from eastern Congo that were supporting the Rwandan-backed armed group M23, as it took control of major cities and mining areas.

That was widely seen as a major escalation and stoked fears of a regional conflict.

So can this agreement succeed where many others have failed?

And is this deal really about US interests in Congolese minerals?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

• Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza – Political commentator and writer
• Zainab Usman – Senior fellow and director of the  Africa Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Vava Tampa – Founder and chief campaigner of Save the Congo

Charlie English begins “The CIA Book Club” by describing a 1970s technical manual: a dull cover, as uninviting as anything. A book that practically begs you to put it back on the shelf and move on.

Which was exactly the point. Secreted inside the technobabble dust jacket was a Polish-language copy of George Orwell’s “1984,” the boring cover a deliberate misdirection to deter prying eyes. The false front is a bit of skullduggery that harks back to a world where conspiracy to escape detection was a part of everyday life. A world where literature could be revolutionary, “a reservoir of freedom.”

English, formerly a journalist for the Guardian, specializes in writing about how art and literature are used to fight extremism: “The Storied City,” published in the U.K. as “The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu,” spotlights librarians who heroically saved priceless manuscripts of West African history from al Qaeda; “The Gallery of Miracles and Madness” traces the “insane” artists who influenced the early 20th century Modernism movement and Hitler’s attempts to stamp out their art — and them. His new book takes us through five decades of Poles fighting Soviet domination and Communist propaganda with a potent weapon: literature.

Even from the vantage point of the 21st century, when we know what became of the USSR, English’s book reads like a thriller. There are CIA suits, secret police, faceless bureaucrats and backstabbing traitors lurking in these pages. We face tensions between paramilitary cowboys and prudent intellectuals, between paper-pushing accountants and survivors saving a culture. While reading, I worried about figures like Helena Łuczywo, who edited and published an underground newspaper, and Mirosław Chojecki, who smuggled books and printing supplies into Poland. As with the best spy novels, we know the good guy is going to win while reading “The CIA Book Club,” but how English gets us there is exciting.

His best chapters follow the protests in the Gdańsk shipyards that led to the Solidarity trade union. A better future shimmers on the page when Lech Wałęsa climbs over a fence as an unemployed electrician, taps someone on the shoulder and becomes “the face of the Polish revolution.” (Ten years later, he became president of Poland, too.) In the violent crackdown that followed the momentary blossoming of freedom after Gdańsk, we feel the heartbreak and fear of the people. We hope again when fighters like Łuczywo begin printing a scant newsletter whose “main job was just to exist” and remind people they weren’t alone.

The book is gripping, but it doesn’t quite deliver on its subtitled promise to “win the Cold War with forbidden literature.” The story English has researched and put together focuses almost entirely on Poland’s fight for freedom from the USSR. Of course, the CIA’s funding of smuggling illicit literature into the Eastern Bloc is an important story, and a nearly forgotten one. As English mentions in the epilogue, while “the book program’s latter-day budget stood at around $2 million to $4 million annually, [the Afghan operation] by 1987 was running at a cost of $700 million a year, taking up 80 percent of the overseas budget of the clandestine service.” Apparently, an operation costing nearly 200 times the other deserves nearly 200 times the credit as well. The result is that the power of inexpensive books was swept under the rug in favor of expensive shows of force.

Still, the impressive power of the book club might have been better elucidated if details about its impact in other Eastern Bloc countries were brought into the story. The focus on Poland obscures what was happening in the USSR. English focused on Poland because the country had a long history of underground revolutionary culture; when the USSR turned independent Poland into a client state known as the People’s Republic of Poland, the Poles already knew how to go underground to fight back. The lifestyle doublespeak people used to survive under successive dictatorships in Eastern Europe came a little more easily to Poles, who had practiced it before. When the CIA offered funding, they were ready. Still, it would have been nice to see how “1984” inspired people in Ukraine or Moldova or Kyrgyzstan. If books are an answer to dictatorships — and as strong as “an organization packed with spooks and paramilitaries who fought in warzones” — it would be inspiring to see more of that. Hopefully a sequel is in the planning stages.

What this book does incredibly well is document an oral history of Polish resistance that has, until now, only been told in bits and pieces. There is archival research in here, but it is in the nature of dictatorships to destroy evidence of their crimes. Fortunately, English talked to many of the people who were there, publishing underground newspapers and smuggling in illicit literature. What information has been declassified — and much of it hasn’t been — bolsters the memories of survivors.

One of the most interesting details of “Book Club” is not that books inspired a nation but which books did. Philosophical tracts and political satires were smuggled in, of course; Poland received its share of “Animal Farm” and “1984” and “Brave New World.” But just as important to the Poles living under Soviet dictatorship were art books, fashion magazines, religious texts, lighthearted novels and regular newspapers. More influential than anti-Communist diatribes were the reminders that there was a world outside Soviet propaganda; each book read was a bid to avoid brainwashing, to not become a tool of the state.

This literary history is a prescient one. As book bans increase around the United States and peaceful protests are met with state violence here in Los Angeles, a tale of when stories saved the day is inherently hopeful. This book is a reminder that words are powerful and that stories matter. Sometimes the most rebellious thing one can do is read a book.

Castellanos Clark, a writer and historian in Los Angeles, is the author of “Unruly Figures: Twenty Tales of Rebels, Rulebreakers, and Revolutionaries You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump says he is not planning to extend a 90-day pause on tariffs on most nations beyond July 9, when the negotiating period he set would expire, and his administration will notify countries that the trade penalties will take effect unless there are deals with the United States.

Letters will start going out “pretty soon” before the approaching deadline, he said.

“We’ll look at how a country treats us — are they good, are they not so good — some countries we don’t care, we’ll just send a high number out,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” during a wide-ranging interview taped Friday and broadcast Sunday.

Those letters, he said, would say, “Congratulations, we’re allowing you to shop in the United States of America, you’re going to pay a 25% tariff, or a 35% or a 50% or 10%.”

Trump had played down the deadline at a White House news conference Friday by noting how difficult it would be to work out separate deals with each nation. The administration had set a goal of reaching 90 trade deals in 90 days.

Negotiations continue, but “there’s 200 countries, you can’t talk to all of them,” he said in the interview.

Trump also discussed a potential TikTok deal, relations with China, the U.S. strikes on Iran and his immigration crackdown.

Here are the key takeaways:

A group of wealthy investors will make an offer to buy TikTok, Trump said, hinting at a deal that could safeguard the future of the popular social media platform, which is owned by China’s ByteDance.

TikTok

“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I’ll need, probably, China approval, and I think President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it,” Trump said.

Trump did not offer any details about the investors, calling them “a group of very wealthy people.”

“I’ll tell you in about two weeks,” he said when asked for specifics.

It’s a time frame Trump often cites, most recently about a decision on whether the U.S. military would get directly involved in the war between Israel and Iran. The U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites just days later.

Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for 90 more days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court — took effect.

Strikes on Iran

Trump reiterated his assertion that the U.S. strikes on Iran had “obliterated” its nuclear facilities, and he said whoever leaked a preliminary intelligence assessment suggesting Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months should be prosecuted.

Trump claimed Iran was “weeks away” from achieving a nuclear weapon before he ordered the strikes, contradicting his own intelligence officials.

“It was obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before,” he said. “And that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday on X that Trump “exaggerated to cover up and conceal the truth.” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that his country’s nuclear program is peaceful and that uranium “enrichment is our right, and an inalienable right and we want to implement this right” under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. “I think that enrichment will not — never stop.”

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said on CBS that “it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage.”

Grossi also said his agency has faced pressure to report that Iran had a nuclear weapon or was close to one, but “we simply didn’t because this was not what we were seeing.”

Of the leak of the intelligence assessment, Trump said anyone found to be responsible should be prosecuted. Journalists who received it should be asked who their source was, he said: “You have to do that and I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”

His press secretary said Thursday that the administration is investigating the matter.

Immigration raids

As he played up his immigration crackdown, Trump offered a more nuanced view when it comes to farm and hotel workers.

“I’m the strongest immigration guy that there’s ever been, but I’m also the strongest farmer guy that there’s ever been,” he said.

He said he wants to deport criminals, but it’s a problem when farmers lose their laborers and it destroys their businesses.

Trump said his administration is working on “some kind of a temporary pass” that could give farmers and hotel owners control over immigration raids at their facilities.

Earlier this month, Trump had called for a pause on immigration raids disrupting the farming, hotel and restaurant industries, but a top Homeland Security official followed up with a contradictory statement. Tricia McLaughlin said there would be “no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine” immigration enforcement efforts.

China trade talks

Trump praised a recent trade deal with Beijing over rare-earth exports from China and said establishing a fairer relationship would require significant tariffs.

“I think getting along well with China is a very good thing,” Trump said. “China’s going to be paying a lot of tariffs, but we have a big [trade] deficit, they understand that.”

Trump said he would be open to removing sanctions on Iranian oil shipments to China if Tehran could show “they can be peaceful and if they can show us they’re not going to do any more harm.”

But the president also indicated the U.S. might retaliate against Beijing. When Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo noted that China has tried to hack U.S. systems and steal intellectual property, Trump replied, “You don’t think we do that to them?”

Klepper and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

Loughborough Lightning have the chance to go for an unprecedented three-peat after booking their spot to face London Pulse in the Netball Super League Grand Final.

Defending champions Lightning were condemned to the preliminary final after they were beaten last week by Pulse, the regular season leaders.

That meant a repeat of last year’s Grand Final against Manchester Thunder and hosts Lightning came from behind to win 69-57 on Sunday.

Thunder scored 10 unanswered goals en route to a 19-12 lead after the first quarter, but Lightning did not look back after a blistering second.

After going 27-20 down, Jodie Gibson came on at goal defence to give Lightning a boost, while Samantha Wallace-Joseph did the damage at the other end.

The Trinidad and Tobago shooter converted five two-point super shots during the second quarter to help Lightning into a 37-30 lead at half-time.

Thunder called a tactical timeout at 44-33 down, while South Africa shooter Elmere van der Berg was brought off for the first time all season.

But Lightning still led 52-40 heading into the final quarter and stayed clear to book a rematch with Pulse in next Sunday’s Grand Final at London’s O2 Arena.

Paris Saint-Germain sweep aside Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami 4-0 to set up last eight clash with Bayern Munich or Flamengo.

Paris Saint-Germain thrashed former player Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami 4-0 in the last 16 of the Club World Cup, with Joao Neves scoring twice en route to victory.

A Miami own goal and a strike by Achraf Hakimi widened the margin to four by halftime at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday.

The European champions will face the winner between Bayern Munich and Flamengo in the quarterfinals on Saturday.

Oscar Ustari made six saves for Inter Miami, while PSG’s Gianluigi Donnarumma had to make just three after Miami were held without a shot attempted for the first 50 minutes. The match was Messi’s first time facing PSG since leaving the club and coming to the United States two years ago.

Desire Doue won PSG a free kick just outside the penalty area less than five minutes into the match. Vitinha took the kick and connected with Neves, who headed it on the run across Ustari’s body and into the net.

Miami defender Noah Allen took a tumble and subbed out due to injury in the 19th minute. His replacement, Tomas Aviles, immediately earned a yellow card by tripping up Nuno Mendes.

PSG continued to control play until Neves doubled the advantage in the 39th minute. Fabian Ruiz dispossessed Sergio Busquets, and a quick passing sequence freed up Neves for an open shot from the centre of the box.

Aviles’ unfortunate match continued when he accidentally chested a PSG cross over his own goal line in the 44th minute.

Moments later, PSG’s Bradley Barcola made a perfect run to receive a pass deep in the box, and he passed it back to Hakimi.

His first shot ricocheted off Ustari’s head and the crossbar, but Hakimi scored his own rebound for a 4-0 advantage.

After a quiet first half, Messi was credited with Miami’s first shot attempt in the 51st minute when he had a left-footer deflected over the net.

Inter Miami’s best chance came early in the second half.

A Messi pass to Luis Suarez sent him clear at the side of the net, but the ball slid harmlessly off his foot without a shot. The 38-year-old striker kicked a water bottle over the barrier in frustration, summing up the day for Inter Miami.

Messi finally connected with Inter Miami’s first shot on goal in the 63rd minute, but it was easily scooped up by goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

Messi had another chance on a header with about 10 minutes remaining, forcing Donnarumma to make a diving save in the only real threat to his third clean sheet of the tournament.

Neves said it was a very “positive” day for PSG.

“It is the first time I have scored two [goals] in one game, so I am very happy. But I am happier for the win,” he told DAZN.

“We have the same confidence [as before]. We will play our game, no matter against who [our opponents are]. We are tired now, but we will recover [before the quarterfinal].”

Inter Miami’s coach Javier Mascherano told DAZN that the game was a good learning experience for his side.

“We knew today was going to be very, very difficult. They [PSG] are probably the best team in the world,” he said. “In the second half we tried to play and show our worth.”

Nice, Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam are other European cities that have also imposed limits on cruise ships.

The French Riviera resort of Cannes has become the latest famous European destination to join the growing global backlash against overtourism by imposing what its city council calls “drastic regulation” on cruise ships.

Cannes city councillors voted on Friday to introduce new limits on cruise ships in the city’s ports. Starting on January 1, only ships with fewer than 1,000 passengers will be allowed in the port, and a maximum of 6,000 passengers will be allowed to disembark daily. Larger ships will be expected to transfer passengers to smaller boats to enter Cannes.

Two cruise ships were scheduled to dock in Cannes, world-renowned for its film festival, on Sunday, each far larger than the upcoming 1,000-passenger limit with a combined capacity of more than 7,000 people.

“Cannes has become a major cruise ship destination, with real economic benefits. It’s not about banning cruise ships, but about regulating, organizing, setting guidelines for their navigation,” Mayor David Lisnard said in a statement.

Cruise operators have called such restrictions damaging for destinations and for passengers.

The nearby city of Nice announced limits on cruise ships earlier this year as have some other European cities, including Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam.

France – which drew in 100 million visitors last year, more than any other European country and more than the country’s population – is at the forefront of efforts to balance economic benefits of tourism with environmental concerns while managing burgeoning crowds.

Cannes and Nice are not the only French cities to take action against overtourism.

On Monday in Paris, Louvre workers went on strike to protest “untenable” working conditions, “chronic understaffing” and “unmanageable crowds” caused by overtourism, which they felt the museum’s infrastructure and current staffing levels could no longer manage.

Similar protests have taken place recently in other European cities.

Demonstrations took place this weekend in Venice against Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding to highlight wealth inequality and protest against the impact of mass tourism on the city. Activists argued that the lavish three-day event exemplified the disregard for local residents’ needs, including affordable housing and essential services, in a city already struggling with mass tourism and environmental concerns.

Residents of Barcelona took a quirky approach by using water guns in protests against overtourism, aiming to highlight their frustration with how excessive visitor numbers are driving up housing costs, displacing locals and eroding the city’s unique character.

ITV have reportedly made a huge move to sign up two actors with great ‘charisma’ to present a brand new gameshow to be aired on Saturday nights

TV fans are set for a real treat with ITV’s latest gameshow signings, according to reports. It’s suggested the channel is to welcome an “amazing duo on-screen” to front a new gameshow.

Claims suggest the top secret new Saturday evening show is set to air next year. And at the helm is said to be Rivals duo Danny Dyer and Emily Atack.

The former EastEnders man, 47, and star of The Inbetweeners, 35, will reportedly start filming to project later this year. It comes after their successful performance on Disney+’s Rivals.

The series, based on Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster books, was well received by fans and saw the duo roundly praised for their roles. Now, a source has claimed it’s this accoladed that had the ITV bosses clamouring to sign the duo.

Speaking to the Sun, a source said: “Bosses have been impressed with Danny and Emily’s charisma on Rivals and thought they’d make an amazing duo on-screen to freshen up their entertainment talent.

“They’re an unlikely pair but have appeared on a few panel shows together and have plenty of fun energy that is perfect for the tone that ITV want to set. Producers are keen to trial new presenting partnerships to get people talking, and both Emily and Danny have huge appeal.”

And they added: “ITV is constantly trying to create the next big show and duo. It’s about getting the chemistry just right.”

It continues Danny’s huge life turnaround. The actor has been open about his previous struggles in recent years. He revealed the moment of clarity to make a change to his life after he was “slowly killing himself” as he was “off his head” after the National TV Awards.

Looking back at his plight with interviewer Louis Theroux, Danny said previously he knew he was “destroying himself” and his career. And he admitted that at the time he was on EastEnders playing Mick Carter, but he would head into rehab in Cape Town in 2016.

He said: “I had a moment of clarity where I had been on it all night after the NTAs. I think I’d won and that’s always on like a Tuesday or something and I had to go to work. There’s another thing with EastEnders, is that they go, yeah, come celebrate NTAs, but you are up at seven in the morning. So anyway, I’d just overdone it again and I just could not work out how to get my jeans on.

“I was just sitting on my ensuite toilet trying to work out what leg goes in what, and I don’t why. I’ve sort of had many of them moments over the years of me being completely off my head.

” But that one really resonated with me. It was more because I looked up, my wife was just watching me and she looked shattered and she looked ill.”

As he continued to open up about the moment, he then revealed he made the decision to go to rehab in Cape Town after this awards show after-party at his house.

Dad-of-three Danny also previously told the BBC receiving a letter from his daughter Dani while at a rehab facility in 2016 was what convinced him to continue his treatment.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

US president denies multiple reports and accounts that say US strikes did not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

United States President Donald Trump has reiterated a vow not to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons following the end of Iran and Israel’s recent 12-day conflict, in which the US militarily intervened, and has stuck closely to his narrative as questions remain about the impact of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

On the Fox News programme Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Trump repeated his claim that Iran was “weeks away” from making the weapons before Israel attacked on June 13. Nine days later, the US targeted Iran’s top three nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Both US intelligence and the United Nations nuclear watchdog have ascertained that Tehran was not building a nuclear arsenal. Iran has long insisted that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only.

While Trump has said that the sites were “obliterated” by the US bombers, in the wake of the attacks, several major news organisations, citing intelligence sources, have reported that the US strikes did not destroy the facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that it was unclear what damage had been sustained at the Fordow plant, which houses the bulk of Iran’s most highly enriched uranium needed to make a nuclear weapon.

On Sunday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran could restart uranium enrichment in a matter of months, while Trump insisted over the weekend that the attacks had set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back “by decades”.

According to an IAEA report last month, Iran has more than 400kg (880lb) of uranium enriched to up to 60 per cent purity, close to the roughly 90 per cent weapons grade – which is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons.

Trump told Fox News that the news outlets questioning the efficacy of the attacks he ordered and lauded were spreading “fake news”.

“It’s just horrible and I could see it happening, and they [news outlets] tried to build that into a story, but then it turned out, no, it was obliterated like nobody has ever seen before and that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions at least for a period of time,” Trump said.

On whether or not Iran would restart its nuclear programme following the end of the conflict, Trump said, “The last thing they want to do right now is think about nuclear.”

During the attack on the sites, reports emerged that Iran had removed the enriched uranium from Fordow, but Trump claimed that was false.

“It’s a very hard thing to do, plus we didn’t give them much notice because they didn’t know we were coming until just then and nobody thought we would go after that site because everybody said that site was impenetrable… it’s at the bottom of a mountain and it’s granite,” he said.

“[But] the bomb went through it like butter, like it was absolute butter,” he said.

Trade talks

Separately, Trump told Fox that US trade talks with Canada would be stopped “until such time as they drop certain taxes” after Canada pushed ahead with a new digital services tax on foreign and domestic technology companies.

Regarding a trade deal with China, Trump said that while Washington, DC has a large trade deficit with Beijing, the US was currently “getting along” with China.

The president added that he had found a buyer for the social media platform TikTok, by a group of “very wealthy people”, who he will reveal in about two weeks after he extended a ban on the app for the third time, for another 90 days.

WASHINGTON — A somewhat reluctant Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in this year’s most far-reaching immigration case and decide whether President Trump was justified in seeking to revoke a popular Obama-era policy that allowed more than 700,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children to temporarily live and work in this country.

Given the conservative majority on the court, the so-called Dreamers’ best hope for victory almost surely depends on Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Though Roberts has repeatedly ruled that the president enjoys broad powers when it comes to immigration, he is also one of the few remaining conservative justices who has shown a willingness to side with liberals on high-profile cases, including one recently in which he agreed that the Trump administration had not adequately defended its actions — the same issue in play in the Dreamers case.

Roberts is a conservative with four other Republican appointees on his right, including Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, Trump’s two appointees. He wrote the 5-4 ruling last year upholding Trump’s travel ban and said then the immigration laws entrust enforcement to the chief executive.

In what may be preview to how they view the Dreamers case, Roberts and the court’s other conservatives in 2016 blocked a similar but more sweeping Obama order, which would have protected as many as 4 million people who were living illegally in the country.

And in recent months, the chief justice played a key role in two other immigration victories for Trump. In late July, a 5-4 majority including Roberts overturned a federal judge in Oakland and cleared the way for Trump to shift $2.5 billion of military construction funds to pay for a border wall. In September, the court overturned a federal judge from San Francisco and let Trump enforce a new ban on asylum claims at the southern border from migrants who did not seek asylum in Mexico.

Those two cases were decided as emergency orders and without a full opinion. They reflect what has become the familiar pattern since Trump took office. The ACLU and Democratic state attorneys have rushed to federal courts in California and New York and won a series of quick rulings that put Trump’s initiatives on hold. When the cases reached the Supreme Court, Trump and his lawyers have often prevailed.

But Roberts is emerging as one of the court’s most unpredictable votes, most famously siding with liberals twice to uphold the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Conservatives were equally disappointed in June when Roberts joined with the court’s four liberals to block the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The chief justice agreed the law gave Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross authority over the census, but he concluded nonetheless that the secretary had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by giving a “contrived” and “pretextual” reason for adding the new question. Hardly anyone believed Ross’ claim that he was seeking to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. Critics said it was designed to reduce census participation among Latinos.

That ruling, though highly procedural, has given hope to lawyers for the Dreamers. They include Ted Olson, a Republican and the U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush. He argued that when Trump terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program in 2017, he did not give a valid explanation to justify the move. Federal judges in San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., agreed. They said Trump’s repeal rested on the false claim that Obama’s order was illegal from the start.

“The executive can change course on enforcement policies, but not in arbitrary and unreasoned ways,” he wrote. His brief argued that presidents for 70 years had used “parole” or “deferred action” to shield large groups of immigrants and refugees, including Hungarians in the 1950s, Cubans in the 1960s and Vietnamese and Cambodians in the 1970s. “DACA is lawful. The administration could have left [it] in place. It did not have to end this humanitarian policy that allows nearly 700,000 people to stay in the only country they have ever really known,” he said.

In November 2018, the 9th Circuit Court upheld a district judge’s order that had blocked Trump’s repeal.

UCLA law professor Hiroshi Motomura, an expert on immigration law, said the court’s opinion by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw “reminds me very much of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion in the census case.” Motomura said the judge ruled that DACA could be rescinded, but there had to be a valid reason articulated. The decision could not rest on the “erroneous premise” that DACA was unlawful, the judge said.

For his part, Trump has continued to insist President Obama’s order broke the law because it exceeded the powers of the president. It was a “totally illegal document,” he tweeted in September. Trump has noted that Congress could pass legislation to protect Dreamers. But attempts to do so have failed in the past, largely because Trump has insisted that Democrats also agree to accept new limits on legal immigration in exchange for the protections for Dreamers.

Trump’s Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco has the easier argument in the high court. If Obama as president was free to grant temporary relief to the Dreamers, Trump as president is free to change course, he said. That is especially so for the chief executive’s “decision to rescind a discretionary policy of non-enforcement against a category of individuals who are violating the law on an on-going basis,” he wrote.

The National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles says there are more than 700,000 DACA recipients here now. They arrived on average at age 7, have lived here more than 20 years and are the parents of 256,000 children who are U.S. citizens.

The DACA policy emerged from the Obama administration’s strategy to target criminals, drug traffickers, security threats and repeat border crossers for arrest and deportation. As such, it made no sense to go after young people who had been brought into the country as children and had clean records since.

In 2012, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano issued a memo setting out the new policy and said it was based on “the exercise of our prosecutorial discretion.”

“Our nation’s immigration laws must be enforced in a strong and sensible manner. They are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case,” she said. “Nor are they designed to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have lived or even speak the language.”

Those who were younger than 16 and had lived in the United States for at least five years were invited to come forward. If they passed a background check, they could be granted deferred action “on a case-by-case basis” and obtain a work permit.

A year later, Napolitano was named the president of the University of California system and she is one of the lead plaintiffs in the suits to preserve DACA. One of the three cases to be heard together Tuesday is called the Department of Homeland Security vs. Regents of the University of California.

“I hope the Supreme Court justices don’t lose sight of the lives that are at issue,” Napolitano said. “They are really American in every way. They have grown up here. They have succeeded here at UC. They are the kind of young people we want.”

Opinion polls have found more than three-fourths of those surveyed — Republicans as well as Democrats — said they favored granting permanent legal status to the Dreamers.

A year ago, however, the administration’s lawyers urged the high court to take up the issue and to uphold Trump’s repeal.

But the justices waited and took no action for months, perhaps hoping that Congress and the president would resolve the legal status of the Dreamers.

With no prospect of congressional action, the justices announced on the last day of their term in late June they would decide on Trump’s repeal of DACA.

Lakers superstar LeBron James will once again make NBA history by playing in his 23rd NBA season.

James exercised his player option for $52.6 million to play for the Lakers during the 2025-26 season, his agent and CEO of Klutch Sports Rich Paul told The Times on Sunday morning.

James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, had been tied with Vince Carter for the most seasons played in the NBA at 22. This will be James’ eighth season with the Lakers.

James, 40, is 50 games away from breaking Hall of Famer Robert Parish’s record for the most games played in the regular season.

James averaged 24.4 points per game last season, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds.

Fellow Laker Dorian Finney-Smith reportedly declined his $15.3-million player option and will pursue free agency, a person with knowledge of his decision told The Times. Finney-Smith, who is coming off a strong season with the Lakers, is expected to be pursued by multiple teams. He could still return to the Lakers. ESPN was first to report Finney-Smith’s decision.

Last week, Austin Reaves declined the team’s maximum offer of four years for $89 million, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Reaves, 27, still has two years left on his deal, for $13.9 million next season and $14.9 million in the 2026-27 season, and he holds a player option for the last year of his deal.

Lakers forward LeBron James (23) and teammate Austin Reaves react to a referee’s call during a 2025 NBA playoff game against Minnesota.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

He was third on the Lakers in scoring last season, averaging career-highs in scoring (20.2), assists (5.8), rebounds (4.5) and minutes per game (34.9). He shot 46% from the field and 37.7% from three-point range.

With the James and Smith player option questions resolved Sunday, the Lakers are focused on filling out their roster. They added an athletic wing player when they acquired Adou Thiero in a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who drafted him with the 36th pick in the second round.

The most pressing need for the Lakers remains a center, and they’ll have to look into free agency or via trade to acquire one.

The Lakers have the taxpayer mid-level exception of about $5.65 million to spend.

“As I said at the end of the year, we know one of the things we have to address is the center position and that’s clearly going to be one of our focuses as we begin the free-agency period,” Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, told Spectrum SportsNet after the second round of the draft Thursday. “… “So, we’re looking forward to just putting in the hard work and making sure we take care of all the needs on the roster to give [Lakers coach] JJ [Redick] the tools he needs for this team to be great next season.”

June 29 (UPI) — Group of Seven nations agreed to exempt U.S. companies from a 15% minimum corporate tax rate, the countries said in a joint statement.

The nonbinding deal was announced Saturday but still requires approval from the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that established the 2021 agreement on taxing companies. G-7 nations are part of the OECED.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had proposed a “side-by-side solution” for American-headquartered companies that would be exempt from the Income Inclusion Rule and Undertaxed Profits Rule “in recognition of the existing U.S. minimum tax rules to which they are subject.”

The massive spending bill now being considered in Congress originally included a “revenge tax” that would have imposed a levy of up to 20% on investments from countries that taxed U.S. companies.

“I have asked the Senate and House to remove the Section 899 protective measure from consideration in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” Bessent wrote in a multi-post thread on X on Thursday.

The House has approved the massive legislation and the Senate is considering it.

“It is an honorable compromise as it spares us from the automatic retaliations of Section 899 of the Big, Beautiful Bill,” Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told local media.

“We are not claiming victory, but we obtained some concessions as the U.S. pledged to engage in OECD negotiations on fair taxation,” an unnamed French official told Politico Europe. The official called the “revenge tax” a potentially “huge burden for French companies.”

Trump has criticized this provision because he said it would limit sovereignty and send U.S. tax revenues to other countries.

“The Trump administration remains vigilant against all discriminatory and extraterritorial foreign taxes applied against Americans,” Bessent wrote Thursday.

Trump has imposed a July 9 deadline for U.S. trading partners to lower taxes on foreign goods, threatening high duties on the worst offenders, including 50% on goods from the 27 European Union members. In April, a baseline tariff was imposed on most U.S. trading partners, with higher rates on certain companies and products.

In 2021, nearly 140 countries agreed to tax multinational companies at the 15% minimum, regardless of where they were headquartered.

In late April, the European Union, Britain, Japan and Canada agreed to exempt the United States from the 15% minimum tax on companies.

“Delivery of a side-by-side system will facilitate further progress to stabilize the international tax system, including a constructive dialogue on the taxation of the digital economy and on preserving the tax sovereignty of all countries,” the joint statement read.

The agreement, according to the statement, would ensure that any substantial risks identified “with respect to the level playing field, or risks of base erosion and profit shifting, are addressed to preserve the common policy objectives of the side-by-side system.”

The G-7 includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy in Europe, as well as Canada, Japan and U.S. Before 2014, the group was known as the G-8 until Russia was expelled after annexing the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The chairs of the House and Senate committees responsible for tax policy cheered the agreement.

“We applaud President Trump and his team for protecting the interests of American workers and businesses after years of congressional Republicans sounding the alarm on the Biden Administration’s unilateral global tax surrender under Pillar 2,” Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a press release.

The agreement also, however, has its critics.

“The U.S. is trying to exempt itself by arm-twisting others, which would make the tax deal entirely useless,” Markus Meinzer, director of policy at the Tax Justice Network, told Politico Europe. “A ship with a U.S.-sized hole in its hull won’t float.”

The Brad Pitt-led racing film “F1 The Movie” sped to the top of the box office this weekend, another in a string of big summer movies that Hollywood hopes will keep driving people to theaters.

The big-budget film from “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer hauled in $55.6 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates. That’s better than analysts had expected for a non-sequel racing movie. People who read pre-release audience surveys had anticipated a debut of $40 million to $50 million.

Powered by the global appeal of Formula One racing, the film took in an additional $88 million internationally. Still, with a reported budget of more than $200 million, not including marketing costs, “F1” will still need significantly more ticket sales to break even.

Only three Hollywood films so far this year have grossed more than $500 million globally — “A Minecraft Movie,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” — and each of those opened above “F1” domestically.

Nonetheless, with “F1,” the iPhone maker has its first box office hit.

While Apple TV+ has found critical success with its shows, including “Severance,” “The Studio” and “Your Friends & Neighbors” — and notched its first best picture Oscar win in 2022 with “CODA” — its films had not yet clinched box office gold.

Its previous star-studded and filmmaker-driven movies have struggled at theaters, including the 2024 spy comedy “Argylle” and space-age romantic comedy “Fly Me to the Moon,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum.

“F1” benefited from a heavily promoted Imax run, which helps make it seem like a must-see on the big screen. Imax screens accounted for 23% of the domestic weekend revenue for “F1,” the cinema technology provider said Sunday. Around 55% of domestic sales came from large-screen formats including Imax, Dolby Cinema and motion seats.

As usual, Apple worked with a major studio to handle the theatrical release. “F1” is being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, adding to the studio’s winning streak that includes “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners” and “Final Destination Bloodlines.” Pitt and Dede Gardner’s Plan B Entertainment produced along with Bruckheimer.

Quality also helped.

“It’s emotional, it’s exciting, it’s got romance, it’s got humor,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer told The Times earlier this month. “It’s the reason I got into this business — to make movies that thrill you on that big screen, that you walk out feeling you’ve been on a real journey and got lost for a couple of hours. That’s the goal every time.”

Strong reviews from audiences and critics bode well for the film’s future grosses and its eventual performance on streaming for Apple. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the movie a grade of “A,” while the movie holds a critics’ score of 83% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.

Not faring as well was Universal Pictures’ murderous doll sequel “M3GAN 2.0,” which debuted with a weak $10 million and landed in fourth place at the domestic box office, behind holdovers “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Elio.”

The Blumhouse film was expected to open with around $20 million. It fell far short of the success of the original, which opened with $30 million in 2023 and eventually collected $180 million worldwide.

Overall, though, it’s been a strong last few months for the horror genre, starting with Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which has now grossed $364 million worldwide, and followed by “Final Destination Bloodlines” and zombie franchise revival “28 Years Later.”

The staying power of movies like “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch” shows the continued draw of family-friendly films at the box office, which have been major winners since the spring. The exception has been Disney and Pixar’s original animated movie “Elio,” which notched Pixar’s worst opening weekend ever last week.

“Elio” collected about $11 million Friday through Sunday, bringing its total to a poor $42 million in the U.S. and Canada for the $150-million animated picture.

Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.

Brits heading abroad this summer are being urged to inspect hotel beds before unpacking, as bedbug infestations and scabies cases continue to surge across the UK with August and September being peak months

Holidaymakers heading abroad this summer are being urged to carry out a quick check before unpacking, as cases of bedbugs and scabies are rising across the UK.

Alarmingly, councils have reported a 35 per cent increase in bedbug infestations since 2022, while the NHS saw a 74 per cent rise in diagnosed scabies cases in hospitals last year.

August and September have been recorded as the peak months for bedbugs, a time when many travel lovers will be jetting off overseas. With this in mind, Brits are being told to stay alert or risk bringing home more than a suitcase of laundry.

Check the bed

Martin Seeley, Senior Sleep Expert at MattressNextDay, is warning that pests like bedbugs and scabies can easily travel back with you from a hotel, no matter how fancy it seems.

“Check mattress seams, bed frames, and behind headboards for signs of bedbugs before settling in and unpacking your belongings. Make sure to never place your bags directly on the hotel bed,” he advises.

Putting your suitcase on your bed could be all it takes to bring an infestation home.

What to look for

Bedbugs are small, reddish-brown insects that live in fabric and bedding. “If you suspect bed bugs, act quickly. Check for tell-tale signs like small reddish-brown spots on your sheets, moulted skins, or clusters of tiny bites on your skin, often in a line or zig-zag pattern. You’ll usually find bed bugs in the seams and folds of your mattress if they have decided to take residence,” says Seeley.

Scabies, meanwhile, are caused by mites that burrow into your skin and spread through contact, including bedding. “Scabies infections cause intense itching due to being burrowed under the skin, which becomes particularly noticeable at night and can make it very difficult to sleep.”

He adds: “Common signs that you might be infected when trying to sleep include persistent itching (especially between your fingers, or around your wrists, elbows, waist, and genitals) and small red bumps or track-like burrows on your skin.”

How to stay protected

“When staying in hotels or holiday rentals, a quick inspection can go a long way,” Seeley says. “Check mattress seams, bed frames, and behind headboards… Instead, keep your bags elevated on a chair or stool, and if you’re worried your hotel room isn’t as clean as you’d like, then only take out what you need and leave the rest of your clothes in your bag.”

If you do return home with bedbugs or scabies, fast action is essential. “When attempting to eradicate bedbugs, begin by vacuuming thoroughly and remember to dispose of the collected dirt immediately in an outside bin. Wash and dry all bedding or clothes… and consider steam cleaning your sofa in case they’ve transferred there too.”

Scabies also requires deep cleaning: “Wash all bedding, towels, and clothing in hot water (at least 60°C)… Any items that can’t be washed should be sealed in a plastic bag for at least 72 hours… You should also make sure that anyone in your household who may have been exposed is treated at the same time to prevent re-infestation.”

Tips for sleeping better while treating symptoms

“Reactions to bedbug bites include itchiness, swelling and welts… The best course of action to relieve itching and discomfort… is taking an antihistamine and keeping the room cool.”

“To get better sleep while treating scabies, apply a prescribed topical treatment at bedtime… Itching can sometimes continue for weeks after being successfully treated, so… keeping the room cool and your bedding lightweight can help to ease irritation… trimming your nails can prevent you from scratching too hard in your sleep and causing an infection.”

Prevention is key

The expert says: “Investing in a high-quality mattress protector is also a wise move… You should remove and wash your mattress protector regularly, hoover your bed frame, wipe down your headboard, and dust any areas around your bed frequently.”

Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian lived in the United States for 47 years, married a U.S. citizen and raised their daughter. She was gardening in the yard of her New Orleans home when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers handcuffed and took her away, her family said.

Kashanian arrived in 1978 on a student visa and applied for asylum, fearing retaliation for her father’s support of the U.S.-backed shah. She lost her bid, but she was allowed to remain with her husband and child if she checked in regularly with immigration officials, her husband and daughter said. She complied, once checking in from South Carolina during Hurricane Katrina. She is now being held at an immigration detention center in Basile, La., while her family tries to get information.

Other Iranians are also getting arrested by immigration authorities after decades in the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security won’t say how many people they’ve arrested, but U.S. military strikes on Iran have fueled fears that there is more to come.

“Some level of vigilance, of course, makes sense, but what it seems like ICE has done is basically give out an order to round up as many Iranians as you can, whether or not they’re linked to any threat and then arrest them and deport them, which is very concerning,” said Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy group.

Homeland Security did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on Kashanian’s case but have been touting arrests of Iranians. The department announced the arrests of at least 11 Iranians on immigration violations a week ago, during the weekend of the U.S. missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, without elaborating, that it arrested seven Iranians at a Los Angeles-area address that “has been repeatedly used to harbor illegal entrants linked to terrorism.”

The department “has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country, came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs or otherwise,” spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said of the 11 arrests. She didn’t offer any evidence of terrorist or extremist ties. Her comment on parole programs referred to former President Biden’s expanded legal pathways to entry, which President Trump shut down.

Russell Milne, Kashanian’s husband, said his wife is not a threat. Her appeal for asylum was complicated because of “events in her early life,” he explained. A court found an earlier marriage of hers to be fraudulent.

But over four decades, Kashanian, 64, built a life in Louisiana. The couple met when she was bartending as a student in the late 1980s. They married and had a daughter. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, filmed Persian cooking tutorials on YouTube and was a grandmother figure to the children next door.

The fear of deportation always hung over the family, Milne said, but he said his wife did everything that was being asked of her.

“She’s meeting her obligations,” Milne said. “She’s retirement age. She’s not a threat. Who picks up a grandmother?”

While Iranians have been crossing the border illegally for years, especially since 2021, they have faced little risk of being deported to their home countries due to severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. That seems to no longer be the case.

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, including Iranians, to countries other than their own in an attempt to circumvent diplomatic hurdles with governments that won’t take their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have taken back noncitizens from the U.S.

The administration has asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for several deportations to South Sudan, a war-ravaged country with which it has no ties, after the justices allowed deportations to countries other than those that noncitizens came from.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Iranians 1,700 times at the Mexican border from October 2021 through November 2024, according to the most recent public data available. The Homeland Security Department reported that about 600 Iranians overstayed visas as business or exchange visitors, tourists and students in the 12-month period through September 2023, the most recent report shows.

Iran was one of 12 countries subject to a U.S. travel ban imposed by Trump that took effect this month. Some fear ICE’s growing deportation arrests will be another blow.

In Oregon, an Iranian man was detained by immigration agents this past week while driving to the gym. He was picked up roughly two weeks before he was scheduled for a check-in at ICE offices in Portland, according to court documents filed by his attorney, Michael Purcell.

The man, identified in court filings as S.F., has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and his wife and two children are U.S. citizens.

S.F. applied for asylum in the U.S. in the early 2000s, but his application was denied in 2002. His appeal failed, but the government did not deport him and he continued to live in the country for decades, according to court documents.

Due to “changed conditions” in Iran, S.F. would face “a vastly increased danger of persecution” if he were to be deported, Purcell wrote in his petition. “These circumstances relate to the recent bombing by the United States of Iranian nuclear facilities, thus creating a de facto state of war between the United States and Iran.”

S.F.’s long residency in the U.S., his conversion to Christianity and the fact that his wife and children are U.S. citizens “sharply increase the possibility of his imprisonment in Iran, or torture or execution,” he said.

Similarly, Kashanian’s daughter said she is worried what will happen to her mother.

“She tried to do everything right,” Kaitlynn Milne said.

Chandler, Rush and Spagat write for the Associated Press.

Direct US involvement in Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran was a dangerous decision, argues Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East history at Johns Hopkins University.

Hours before a ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran was announced, Nasr told host Steve Clemons that “the US doesn’t have a regime change option in Iran” and should be wary of humiliating Tehran, which would lead to long-term consequences.

Nasr argues that the 12-Day War was meant to establish Israel’s dominance as the premier Middle East power, backed by Washington, with no room for challengers.