LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown
LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown/node/2604236/world
LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown
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A law enforcement officer shoots non-lethal weapon at a protester during a demonstration against federal immigration sweeps on June 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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A law enforcement officer shoots non-lethal weapon at a protester during a demonstration against federal immigration sweeps on June 11, 2025. (Reuters)
LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown
Celebrities hit disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers
“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order," says singer Doechii
Updated 12 June 2025
AFP
LOS ANGELES: As President Donald Trump’s military-backed crackdown on immigrants continues in Los Angeles and across the US, celebrities are speaking out against the tactics and what they say are the intolerant views driving them.
Some pointed to the gulf between Trump’s apocalyptic descriptions of a city in flames and the reality of a vast and diverse metropolis where largely peaceful protests are limited to a small part of downtown.
Here’s what the glitterati had to say:
Many celebrities touched on the disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers.
“When we’re told that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) exists to keep our country safe and remove violent criminals — great,” LA native and reality star Kim Kardashian wrote on social media.
“But when we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up.”
The billionaire behind Skims underwear added: “Growing up in LA, I’ve seen how deeply immigrants are woven into the fabric of this city. They are our neighbors, friends, classmates, coworkers and family.
“No matter where you fall politically, it’s clear that our communities thrive because of the contributions of immigrants.”
Singer Doechii echoed that sentiment in her acceptance speech for best female hip hop artist at the BET Awards on Sunday.
“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order. Trump is using military forces to stop a protest,” the “Anxiety” singer said. “We all deserve to live in hope and not fear”
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel gave a blistering 12-minute monologue from his studio in the heart of Hollywood, opening with footage of tourists enjoying the nearby attractions and a movie premiere.
“Not only is it not an apocalypse, they’re having a Disney/Pixar movie premiere right now for ‘Elio’, a movie about aliens — don’t tell Trump, he’ll send the Green Berets in, too,” the comedian said.
There is something wrong, he said, with innocent people “being abducted — which is the correct word to use — by agents in masks, hiding their identities, grabbing people off the streets.”
Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician and producer Finneas, famous for collaborations with sister Billie Eilish and for work on the “Barbie” movie soundtrack, reported being caught up in a heavy-handed police response at a protest.
“Tear-gassed almost immediately at the very peaceful protest downtown — they’re inciting this,” the LA native wrote on Instagram.
“Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria, called the raids “un-American.”
“It’s just so inhumane, hard to watch, it’s hard, it’s hard to witness from afar, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in Los Angeles right now,” she wrote on Instagram.
Longoria added that the protests were a result of “the lack of due process for law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants who have been a part of our community for a very long time.”
As the UN turns 80, its crucial humanitarian aid work faces a clouded future
Updated 6 sec ago
KAKUMA: At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007. “We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,” the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the UN World Food Program and UN refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees. Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from conflict-hit east African countries. A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, “UN agencies have supported my children’s education — we get food and water and even medicine,” as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics. This year, those cash transfers — and many other UN aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives. As the UN marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense. Some UN agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some UN agencies. Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the UN and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago. “It’s the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the UN in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,” said Jan Egeland, a former UN humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. “And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.” ‘Brutal’ cuts to humanitarian aid programs UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of UN agencies to find ways to cut 20 percent of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid. Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don’t — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water. The UN says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have detained dozens of UN and other aid workers. Proponents say UN aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles. Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often UN-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight. In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the UN’s refugee and migration agencies, the US has represented at least 40 percent of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in US foreign assistance have hit hard. Each UN agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending. “It’s too brutal what has happened,” said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. “However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.” With the UN Security Council’s divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of UN activity. That’s dimming now. Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work. UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948. Israel claims the agency’s schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off UN aid in Gaza to profit from it, while UN officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy. “UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,” said Issa Hajj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife’s heart medicine. The United States, Israel’s top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless. Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: “If it wasn’t for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.” Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks. “This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,” said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. “It’s a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40 percent. So obviously that’s an equation that doesn’t come together easily.” Billing itself as the world’s largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff. The aid landscape is shifting One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing. The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the US Agency for International Development. Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites. No private-sector donor or well-heeled country — China and oil-rich Gulf states are often mentioned by aid groups — have filled the significant gaps from shrinking US and other Western spending. The future of UN aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body’s 193 member countries. “We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the UN to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program.
Netanyahu using Iran war to stay in power ‘forever’: former US president Clinton
Clinton said he called on President Trump to “defuse” the current conflict between Israel and Iran
He emphasized the importance of the US protecting its allies in the region
Updated 13 min 26 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: Former US president Bill Clinton said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been wanting to fight Iran for a longtime because that way he can stay in the office forever.
“Netanyahu has long wanted to fight Iran because that way he can stay in office forever and ever. I mean, he’s been there most of the last 20 years,” the former president said during an appearance on “The Daily Show”.
Clinton said he called on US President Donald Trump to “defuse” the current conflict between Israel and Iran, and end the “outright constant killing of civilians.”
“But I think we should be trying to defuse it, and I hope President Trump will do that.”
The former president said he does not think either Netanyahu or Trump want to trigger a full-scale regional disaster.
He also emphasized the importance of the US protecting its allies in the region, while simultaneously advocating for restraint.
“We have to convince our friends in the Middle East that we’ll stand with them and try to protect them,” he stated.
“But choosing undeclared wars in which the primary victims are civilians, who are not politically involved, one way or the other, who just want to live decent lives, is not a very good solution.”
The US by far has stayed out of direct action in the conflict between Iran and Israel. But it has helped Israel shoot down missiles from Tehran and has supplied it with military equipment.
Putin says Russia has told Israel there’s no evidence Iran wants nuclear weapons, Sky News Arabia reports
Putin: Russia is ready to support Iran in developing a peaceful nuclear program, and has the right to do so
Updated 28 min 23 sec ago
Reuters
MOSCOW: Russia has repeatedly told Israel that there is no evidence Iran is aiming to get nuclear weapons, Sky News Arabia on Saturday quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying in an interview.
“Russia, as well as the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), has never had any evidence that Iran is preparing to obtain nuclear weapons, as we have repeatedly put the Israeli leadership on notice,” Sky News Arabia quoted Putin as saying.
Russia is ready to support Iran in developing a peaceful nuclear program, Putin was quoted as saying, adding that Iran has the right to do so.
Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, Putin said Russia was sharing its ideas on how to stop the bloodshed in the Iran-Israel conflict with both sides.
VP Vance says US troops still ‘necessary’ in Los Angeles
Many in Los Angeles are angry about immigration raids carried out as part of Trump’s ambition to deport vast numbers of undocumented migrants around the country
Updated 45 min 28 sec ago
AFP
LOS ANGELES: US Vice President JD Vance said on Friday that the thousands of troops deployed to Los Angeles this month were still needed despite a week of relative calm in the protest-hit city.
President Donald Trump has sent roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines, purportedly to protect federal property and personnel, after demonstrations over immigration raids.
“Unfortunately, the soldiers and Marines are still very much a necessary part of what’s going on here because they’re worried that it’s going to flare back up,” Vance told reporters in Los Angeles.
He was speaking the day after an appeals court ruled that Trump could continue to control the California National Guard, which would normally fall under Governor Gavin Newsom’s authority.
California officials have heavily criticized Trump over his use of the military, saying it escalated protests that local law enforcement could have handled.
The demonstrations were largely peaceful and mostly contained to a small part of Los Angeles, the second-largest US city, although there were instances of violence and vandalism.
“If you let violent rioters burn Great American Cities to the ground, then, of course, we’re going to send federal law enforcement in to protect the people the president was elected to protect,” Vance said, adding that Trump would deploy them again if needed.
The Republican further accused Newsom — a possible contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 — and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging protesters.
Newsom and Bass have both condemned rioting and violence toward law enforcement while accusing the Trump administration of manufacturing a crisis in the city.
Bass hit back at Vance during a news conference on Friday, accusing him of openly lying and saying that local law enforcement agencies handled crowd control.
“How dare you say that city officials encourage violence. We kept the peace. You know that the federal officials that were here protected a federal building — they were not involved in crowd control,” she said.
Bass said that even when there was vandalism, at its height “you are talking about a couple of hundred people who are not necessarily associated with any of the peaceful protests.”
“Los Angeles is a city that is 500 square miles and any of the disruption that took place took place at about 2 square miles in our city,” she said, accusing Vance of adding to “provocation” and sowing “division.”
Many in Los Angeles are angry about immigration raids carried out as part of Trump’s ambition to deport vast numbers of undocumented migrants around the country.
Outrage at the use of masked, armed immigration agents also sparked protests in other cities, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas.
Tensions spiked when California Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, was handcuffed and forcibly removed last week when attempting to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem questions during her news conference.
Vance misnamed the senator when referring to the incident, saying: “I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question but unfortunately I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater.”
Bass reacted to the comment with outrage.
“How dare you disrespect him and call him Jose. But I guess he just looked like anybody to you,” she said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had said Padilla’s treatment “reeks of totalitarianism,” while the White House claimed — despite video evidence to the contrary — that Padilla had “lunged toward Secretary Noem.”
Superyacht is pulled from the seabed 10 months after sinking off Sicily
Updated 20 min 12 sec ago
AP
ROME: A British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank off Sicily last year, killing U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch and six others, partially resurfaced Saturday as salvage recovery crews finalized the complex operation to bring it ashore for further investigation.
The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184-foot) Bayesian was visible on the surface but was not clear of the sea yet in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge.
“Pumping out of sea water will continue and it will be lunchtime, following a series of lifting and resting procedures to satisfy the salvage team, before Bayesian is fully and finally out of the water,” said David Wilson, spokesman for TMC Maritime, which is conducting the recovery operation.
The Bayesian sank Aug. 19 off Porticello, near Palermo, during a violent storm as Lynch was treating friends to a cruise to celebrate his acquittal two months earlier in the U.S. on fraud charges. Lynch, his daughter and five others died. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef.
Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation.
TMC Maritime said the vessel has been slowly raised from the seabed, 50 meters (165-feet) down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel.
Eight steel lifting straps are being used to support the hull upright and to form part of a steel wire lifting system that began raising the vessel out of the water Saturday. As it is lifted up, sea water is pumped out of the hull.
TMC Maritime said the vessel will be held upright, out of the water, for checks and preparations for its final journey.
On Sunday, it is anticipated the floating crane platform will move the Bayesian to the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese, where a special steel cradle is waiting for it.
The Bayesian is missing its 72-meter (236-foot) mast, which was cut off and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be raised.
British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by “extreme wind” and couldn’t recover.
The report said the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and “violently” knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds.
Lynch, who sold Autonomy, a software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011, had been acquitted on fraud charges in June 2024 by a federal court jury in San Francisco.
