Ukraine's e-Points system is pushing soldiers toward higher-value Russian targets. Units earn points for confirmed hits and use them to buy drones, robots, and other gear. The system shows how Ukraine is using incentives, data, and decentralization to fight faster.
The Trump administration is U-turning on its controversial decision to dismantle a critical ocean monitoring system that provides vital information on the health of the world's oceans, after a bipartisan backlash in Congress. In late May, the National Science Foundation, which funds the $386 million deep-ocean system, announced it would be pulling up buoys and other underwater equipment from arrays off the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, North Carolina and Greenland in what it called a "descoping" of the network. Read more
Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi, musicians Ehsan Beiraqdar and Soheil Faqih Nasiri, and six members of the production team for the Caravanserai Concert were ordered to be lashed 74 times by the Qom Provincial Criminal Court, Iranian human-rights groups and diaspora media outlets reported Thursday. The artists will also face a two-year travel ban and a two-year restriction on all artistic activity. The court ruled they had offended "public decency through the production and publication of obscene and immoral content on cyberspace platforms." The artists and their team were first arrested after their performance was broadcast on YouTube last December. They were ordered to appear before the Prosecutor's Office for Moral Security in January.
Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George is slated to be the next mayor of Washington DC after her opponent conceded on Thursday. Lewis George, a city council member, ran on a platform of expanding childcare, education and housing, and revoking the district's cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. In the city's first ranked-choice voting election, she succeeded in securing the Democratic nomination in a party stronghold, fending off another former city council member, Kenyan McDuffie. McDuffie had run a campaign more focused on public safety and local businesses. Now, Lewis George will be on the ballot in November's general election, where she will probably run unopposed.
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Texas State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, on Thursday visited Waco to call on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to "release the Hoffman Files."
Talarico held a news conference at the McLennan County Courthouse to attack Paxton, his Republican opponent in the senate race.
"Ken Paxton gave Adam Hoffman an Epstein style sweetheart deal," Talarico said, "Ken Paxton had a chance to protect a child. Instead, he protected a child predator."
A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said. The defense secretary described the vaccine requirement, which he lifted in April, as an "absurd, overreaching" mandate.
Lawmakers in the state Senate took the final vote on these taxes on Thursday morning, sending them to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk where he's expected to sign the legislation before the end of the month. One proposal involves an increase in taxes on health plans, which experts say will raise rates for individuals with private health insurance by an average of $100 per year. This tax is expected to generate $2 billion annually to help fund Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for low-income residents. The second tax increase would impose a new sales tax on digital software, including programs like Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, Slack, and Workday. This tax, starting at 7.25%, could vary depending on the region of California where the software is purchased or used. The measure is projected to bring in approximately $900 million annually for the state's general fund. Read more
Guess dumping in all the hydrogen peroxide, AKA paint stripper, was a bad idea.
President Donald Trump and his team had several red lines that they used to justify the US war against Iran. At a press conference on Wednesday, Trump largely brushed them aside.
AP: Efforts by Major League Baseball teams to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity during Pride Month haven't been embraced with open arms by some of its rank-and-file players, and the league's response is prompting criticism from prominent Republican politicians. Several members of the San Francisco Giants added Bible verses or opted not to wear the themed cap at all during the club's Pride Night on June 12. A few nights earlier, two Los Angeles Dodgers players did not wear rainbow-themed caps with their teammates. MLB warned Giants players that writing on the caps is a violation of league policy, though the league added its issue was not with the content of the respective messages but the act of modifying the cap itself. The fallout has included criticism from notable politicians, including Vice President JD Vance and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.
Former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama arrive at the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois, on June 18, 2026.
More than 1,000 hospitals, clinics, and health service providers have closed, are at risk of closure, or have cut essential services since Donald Trump and the Republicans callously slashed national health care funding to give tax cuts to the super-wealthy last July 2025.
More austerity and anguish for Americans coming
Moscow has come under the largest Ukrainian attack since the start of the full-scale war, with close to 200 drones hitting targets around the Russian capital and setting columns of thick smoke billowing high into the sky. Seventeen people were wounded in the Moscow region, according to local governor Andrei Vorobyov. Almost 1,000 drones and four Ukrainian cruise missiles were intercepted and destroyed across the country in 24 hours, Russia's defence ministry was quoted as saying. An oil depot was struck in the southern Rostov region, where one person was killed. Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had once again hit the Moscow region with "long-range sanctions" - a euphemism for Ukrainian long-distance strikes on Russia.
Officials altered their views on the economy, raising their outlook on inflation for 2026 to 3.6% on headline and 3.3% for core, which excludes food and energy. At the last update in March, committee members anticipated 2.7% rates for both measures. They also slightly lowered their projection for gross domestic product growth to 2.2%, down 0.2 percentage point from March, and cut the unemployment projection to 4.3%, down 0.1 percentage point.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the US will kick off a six-month review of its military presence in Europe as leaders in the region brace for a plan for deep cuts to American support for the continent. President Donald Trump's administration has floated plans to slash military assets the Pentagon would send to defend Europe in case of an attack, raising questions about how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would replace those capabilities. Hegseth's NATO counterparts urged him to at least coordinate the withdrawal with European capitals. "I'm announcing today a six-month Department of War review that will examine America's force posture and basing in Europe," Hegseth said at the start of a meeting of defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, using the administration's designation for the Department of Defense. Read more
For years, the Chinese auto industry has employed a hostile price war to kneecap global competitors. Armed with massive state subsidies, cheap raw materials, and an aggressive "scale-first" business model, Chinese automakers flooded the market with electric vehicles priced so low that legacy manufacturers stood no chance to compete. How did they do it? Simple, they couldn't. They did it anyway. Reports from CarNewsChina show that Chinese automakers have been selling vehicles at a loss until a recent law passed by the Chinese government banned below-cost sales of new vehicles. Read more
