Category: Australasia

White House offers first look inside UFC Freedom 250 octagonGuests have started arriving for President Donald Trump’s UFC event at the White House, but a pair of unexpected environmental threats are looming.
Sunday’s event, which falls on Trump’s 80th birthday, could be disrupted by severe thunderstorms and swarms of insects. The region could be hit with hail, wind gusts up to 70 mph and frequent lightning until 11 p.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service.
In response to reports of poor weather, the White House Rapid Response team declared the celebrations would continue “rain or shine.”
More than 4,000 people will gather in a massive arena on the White House’s South Lawn to watch the event. Another 120,000 spectators are expected to attend a watch party at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park just south of the White House.
All 14 fighters successfully made weight Saturday during ceremonial weigh-ins at the Ellipse. Following their official morning weigh-ins, the athletes ..

Trump says peace deal ‘scheduled to get signed tomorrow’ and Hormuz to ‘open to all’Donald Trump has said the peace deal with Iran is scheduled “to be signed tomorrow” in a post online, claiming the Strait of Hormuz will then be “OPEN TO ALL”.
He added that the administration’s “relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had”.
The US president ended his post on a sinister note as he warned there is the “ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again” if process does not work “smoothly”.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that the US and Iran ⁠have ​agreed to a ⁠framework for a ⁠peace deal ​that would ⁠end ‌the months-long conflict in the Middle ‌East, with a ‌final text of the ⁠deal reached.
It had been reported that Trump is scrambling to secure a peace deal with Iran before the G7 summit with world leaders on Monday.
Iran has said a peace deal has never been closer, yet several contradictory statements h..

The death of a Haitian asylum seeker whose body was found days after she was released from ICE custody has been ruled a homicide.
Maintenance works found Daphy Michel, 31, lying on the ground in a bus shelter, alone and unresponsive, on the morning of March 2, three days after she was released from an ICE office in Pittsburgh.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office found that she died of hypothermia and it ruled the manner a homicide, “indicating the death was caused by the actions of another individual.”
An attorney representing her family said he expects her relatives to sue Immigration and Customs Enforcement in connection with her death.
Michel was a native of Haiti who was seeking asylum in the U.S. after arriving at the southern border in 2022, said Joseph Patrick Murphy, her family's attorney. She was granted humanitarian parole based on urgent humanitarian need, but she did not live to see a hearing scheduled for two weeks after she died, he said.
The medical ..

A young woman in Texas who doctors said had a two percent chance to survive at birth was killed in a car crash on the way to her new summer job.
Makynna Tumlinson, 18, died in a car crash on Highway 11 while she was on her way to start a summer job on June 3.
Stephanie Tumlinson, her mother, told KXII that she and her daughter spoke just before she left for the day. Her father, Tommy, then drove to the scene after seeing her location was near the crash site.
“From that point on, we were just panicking, you know, hoping that they got something wrong, you know?” the mother said, who received the tragic news after the father’s journey.
When she was born, Tumlinson was given a two percent chance of survival. Doctors predicted she would be stillborn, but “she beat those odds,” her mother said.
Makynna Tumlinson, 18, from Tom Bean, Texas, died in a car crash on June 3 while she was driving to her new summer job (Stephanie Tumlinson)Texas Department of Public Safety officials said Tumlinson..

Helen Mirren, one of the world's most acclaimed actors, was added Friday to a very select group of people recognized by King Charles III for their “major contribution” over the years to British life.
The 80-year-old was named a “Companion of Honour,” one of the highest awards the king can bestow to citizens in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, limited to only 65 people at any time.
Mirren's elevation to the group, which also includes British environmentalist David Attenborough, Canadian author Margaret Atwood and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was one of the highlights of Charles' latest award of honors.
The honors, which aim to reward individuals for their contributions to British life, are awarded twice a year to celebrities and public figures as well as ordinary people, once at New Year’s, and then in June, to mark the king’s birthday.
Nearly 1,200 people received honors in the king’s 2026 birthday list,
The award recognizes Mirren'..

Donald Trump backed down and announced a new pick to be his director of National Intelligence on Thursday after Democrats threatened to allow a key piece of surveillance legislation expire rather than allow one of the president’s political operatives to temporarily serve in the role.
The president wrote on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon that Jay Clayton, a former chair of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and attorney for the Southern District of New York would take over the role, pending Senate confirmation. His statement came only a few short hours after Democrats halted an attempt to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for three weeks while Congress worked over the impasse.
“I am pleased to announce the Nomination of very Highly Respected Jay Clayton, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the former Head of Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the most prominent and successful Law Firms anywhere in the World, and the current United States A..

DeAnna Brandon, a 48-year-old blood cancer survivor, cherishes the simple moments of splashing in a kiddie pool with her grandchildren.
Yet, these precious afternoons are overshadowed by a looming fear: new Medicaid work requirements, set to begin next year, could jeopardize her health coverage and the life-saving treatment keeping her multiple myeloma in remission.
Brandon, who lives in Rockwell, North Carolina, had anticipated qualifying for a medical frailty exemption. But new guidance introduced last week by the Trump administration has cast doubt on her eligibility.
The interim final rule, released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, stipulates that her extreme exhaustion and memory challenges, direct consequences of her treatment, may no longer be sufficient to bypass the work mandates. She will now be required to attest, and subsequently prove, that these symptoms “significantly impair” her ability to fulfill the requirements.
Should her case not be accepted by ..

Kai Trump, the granddaughter of President Donald Trump, posted a clip on Instagram of her and the president standing for the national anthem at the NBA Finals Game – but it lacked the audio of the crowd’s boos and only cheers were overlaid.
The roughly 10-second-long clip, posted Tuesday on her Instagram account, appears to be the moment Kai Trump was captured on the jumbotron standing alongside her grandfather for the national anthem during Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.
However, the audio appears to have been swapped for the sound of a crowd cheering, rather than the NBA Finals crowd, which mostly booed the president.
The original audio also features Avery Wilson singing the national anthem at the start of Game 3 between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs. That is absent from Kai Trump’s video.
“Thank you to 15SOF for capturing this special moment with my Grandpa,” Kai Trump wrote in her caption, referring to 15 Seconds of Fame, an app that allows people fe..

'We're going to hit them hard', says Trump as he accuses Tehran of 'playing us for suckers'The U.S. military has launched a fresh wave of attacks on Iran after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised the country’s forces would be “busy tonight.”
“U.S. Central Command forces began launching additional self-defense strikes today at 5:15 p.m. ET against multiple targets in Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction. The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” CENTCOM’s X account stated on Wednesday evening.
Earlier, Trumpsaid that the U.S. is going to attack Iran “very hard” unless a peace deal is finalized.
“We'll see what happens, but we hit them hard yesterday, and we're going to hit them again hard today”, Trump told reporters at the White House.
After urging de-escalation between Israel and Iran earlier in the week, Trump vowed to press on “attacking [Iran] very hard,” citing the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter i..

Trump says he expects to sign peace deal in ‘two or three days’Donald Trump’s military has launched retaliatory strikes after the US president accused Iran of shooting down an American helicopter.
Trump warned earlier Tuesday that the US “must, of necessity, respond” to the downing of an Apache helicopter that was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz overnight.
Two American service personnel were rescued from the vital waterway in a stable condition after the $40 million gunship went down, the military said.
US Central Command announced the “self-defense strikes” against Iran Tuesday evening, Washington time.
“The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression”, the military said.
Iranian state media reported explosions and air defense sirens heard along Iran's Persian Gulf coast, per The New York Times.
Trump said earlier Tuesday that the two pilots involved in the helicopter attack “both are safe and uninjured.” And he later tried to downplay the incident.
He ..